acknowledgement this has not always been possible. should ... · study unit 4: philosophical...

© 2017 University of South Africa

All rights reserved

Printed and published by theUniversity of South AfricaMuckleneuk, Pretoria

PLS1502/1/2018–2019

70492115

InDesign

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge Mogobe B. Romosa for his contribution to previous editions of this study guide.

Although every eff ort has been made to trace the copyright holders of quoted material, this has not always been possible. Should any infringement have occured, the publisher apologises and undertakes to amend the omission in the event of a reprint.

HSY_Style

PLS1502/1 (iii)

CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION iv

Study unit 1: Defi ning African philosophy 11.1 Introduction and learning outcomes 11.2 The controversy of the term “Africa” 21.3 Africanity of African philosophy 71.4 Philosophicality of African philosophy 81.5 Summary 91.6 Primary reading – Imbo 111.7 Further Reading (see Appendix 1 for list of Readings) 11

Study unit 2: Discourses on Africa 122.1 Introduction and learning outcomes 122.2 The term “discourse” 122.3 Discourses on Africa 132.4 Prescribed readings 162.5 Further Reading (see list in Appendix 1) 22

Study unit 3: Trends in African philosophy 233.1 Introduction and outcomes 233.2 What is a trend? 233.3 The most general classifi cation of African philosophy:

language 253.4 Wiredu’s classifi cation 273.5 Nkombe and Smet’s classifi cation of African philosophy 273.6 H Odera Oruka’s four trends in African philosophy 283.7 Conclusion 303.8 Further Reading (see Appendix 1) 30

Study unit 4: Philosophical anthropology 314.1 Introduction and learning outcomes 314.2 African cosmology 314.3 Two poles of African anthropology 324.4 Prescribed reading: Kwame Gyekye 334.5 Conclusion 374.6 Further Reading (see Appendix 1) 38

Study unit 5: Morality in African thought 395.1 Introduction and learning outcomes 395.2 The distinction between morality and ethics 405.3 Prescribed readings: JAI Bewaji – “Ethics and morality

in the Yoruba culture” 415.4 Conclusion 435.5 Further Reading (see Appendix 1) 43

(iv)

1INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the module, Introduction to African Philosophy (PLS1502)!

We hope that you will fi nd this course interesting, meaningful and challenging.

The PLS1502 module is offered by the Discipline of Philosophy, which forms part of the Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology, in the School of Humanities at Unisa.

This is an introductory module to African philosophy. You are about to embark on a study of philosophy arising from the African experience or focused upon it. We wish to emphasise that this is African philosophy. In addition, it is philosophy proper that you will be studying. It is therefore important that you adopt the only correct attitude towards African philosophy, namely, that it is a fi eld of study that demands your serious intellectual attention, and will demand intellectual rigour from you.

11OVERVIEW OF THE MODULEOVERVIEW OF THE MODULEThis module will be useful to students of all disciplines of all colleges.

• Those who achieve this module will be able to think critically and creatively about Africa and her experiences.

• Learners who enrol in this module will be introduced to a systematic refl ection on the African experience of the world.

• Introduction to African philosophy exposes learners to the history of the emergence of African philosophy.

• Learners will explore critically what it means to be human in the African culture and what constitutes “right” or “wrong” in the African experience.

OUTCOMES AND ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Outcomes Assessment Criteria

• Learners will be able to understand and explain an inclusivist defi nition of philosophy and correlate it with the exclusivist defi nition.

• Attempt to answer the question: What is (African) philosophy?

• Analyse concepts such as Africa, African, philosophy and African philosophy.

• Show that philosophising is a human activity open to all rational animals in the world.

• Learners will be able to identify, evaluate and critique various criteria used for delineating or describing who or what an African is.

• Various criteria are used to decide who may qualify to be an African and who may not.

• Implications of transcending the geographical space of Africa in defi ning “African”.

PLS1502/1 (v)

• Learners will be able to identify and critique the different approaches and trends to African philosophy

• Various approaches and trends to African philosophy are analysed in order to attempt a comprehensive understanding of African philosophy.

• Compare and contrast different approaches to African philosophy

• Learners will be able to understand and explain the African conceptions of “morality” and “a person,” and contrast them to the Western conceptions.

• Different moral values and norms are discussed from an African perspective.

• Some theories of “man” from an African perspective are critically evaluated.

• Comparisons are drawn between African and Western conceptions of “man” and “morality.”

Link with other modules

BREAKDOWN OF MODULEThis module consists of two parts. Part one deals with African philosophy and its scope and trends, and has three study units. Part two deals with issues and themes in African philosophy and has two chapters.

• Study unit 1 explores the term “African philosophy’ in its particularity and universality. It specifi cally problematises the term “Africa”, showing how the term is imposed from outside and not used self-referentially by the so-called Africans.

• Study unit 2 critically analyses some of the discourses on Africa. It exposes the ethnocentrism, especially the Eurocentrism endemic in discourses about Africa and Africans. It then proposes how African and Western philosophical discourses can coexist.

• Study unit 3 outlines various trends and approaches adopted by African philosophers in the study of the discipline of African philosophy.

• Study unit 4 discusses philosophical anthropology. This is discourses on what it means to be a human being in the African culture and traditions. The chapter focuses specifi cally on the communitarian dimension of being a person in the African culture.

• Study unit 5 discusses morality in African thought. It describes broad principles on what it means to be a good and bad person.

(vi)

The diagram below gives a schematic overview of our module:

Study unit 1

Defi ning African philosophy

Study unit 3

Trends in African philosophy

Study unit 4

Philosophical anthropology

Study unit 5

Morality in African thought

PART II

Issues and themes in African philosophy

PART I

African philosophy and its scope and trends

Study unit 2

Discourses on Africa

Link with other modules

This module links up with two other modules in our discipline, namely, African Ethics and Politics (PLS2602) and Advanced African Philosophy (PLS3703). The module is placed at the very beginning of modules in African philosophy. It forms the overall introduction to African philosophy. Accordingly, some of the themes introduced in this module will be discussed in some detail in PLS2602 and PLS3703. However, this does not suggest that PLS1502 is an overall prerequisite for registering for PLS2602 and PLS3703 by all students. But students who take African philosophy as a major subject need to follow these modules in a progressive order.

PLS1502/1 1

1STUDY UNIT 11Defi ning African philosophy

1.1 Introduction and learning outcomesAfrican philosophy must be studied within the broader context of world philosophies. There are different kinds of philosophies in the world, namely: African, Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Western and many others.

However, this module focuses on African philosophy. We are going to show in this chapter that what makes philosophy African, among other things, is the African experience from which African philosophy proceeds. In other words, African experi-ence forms a “pre-text” of this philosophy. Hence a minimum knowledge of African History will be an added advantage in the study of African philosophy. Please note that we will not confi ne the term “Africa” or “African” to its geographical meaning. This implies that for our purpose, “Africans” are people located in the continent of Africa and in diaspora.

There are numerous and varied ways to approach the question, “What is African philosophy”? Based on linguistic considerations, the term “African philosophy” sug-gests that “African Philosophy is, at the same time, basically philosophical and typically African” (Osuagwu, vol 4:28). But what do the two words, namely, “philosophical” and “African” mean? It is the purpose of this chapter to explore the meanings of the two component parts of the term “African Philosophy” and to illustrate that they bear, respectively, the particular and universal dimensions of Philosophy. Further, in this chapter we also seek to problematise the term “Africa” by arguing that the term was imposed on Africans by explorers of Africa.

2

LEARNING OUTCOMESLEARNING OUTCOMESWhen you have completed this chapter, you should be able to:

(a) Uncover assumptions about Africa and her people as conceived by some Europeans.

(b) Critique ethnocentrism in general and Eurocentrism in particular.(c) Interrogate the populist and exclusivist defi nition of philosophy.(d) Interrogate the meaning of the term “Africa” in its historical context.(e) Underscore the problematic of “names” and “naming”.(f) Explore the complexities of “African identity”.(g) Give the most basic defi nition of African philosophy.

1.2 The controversy of the term “Africa”The linguistic, historical and philosophical meaning of the term “Africa” and “Af-rican” in its adjectival form is by no means beyond dispute. The nature and signifi -cance of the dispute are not just simple matters of academic curiosity that so often solidifi es into academism that we often fi nd in academic sphere. On the contrary, the nature and signifi cance of the dispute ultimately pertains to questions of natural and historical justice. For this reason the term “Africa” must be problematised, in spite of its popularity in everyday usage. The indigenous peoples of the continent designated geographically as “Africa” may therefore not take it for granted whenever others refer to them as “Africans”, or when they refer to themselves as such.

Think about why the term “Africa” might be controversial. Have you ever thought about problema-tising the name of the continent?

If you haven’t, take a few minutes to refl ect on the history of the continent, using the following questions:

• Who named the continent? • What infl uenced the naming of the continent? • What is the connotation, today, of the term “Africa”?”

Although the geographical meaning of the term “Africa” is widely accepted as settled, questions and problems arise as soon as expressions such as “Arab Africa”, “Maghreb Africa” or “sub-Saharan Africa” are used. These expressions manifest the historical meaning of Africa as well as indicate the multiple dimensions of the term “Africa”.

Let us now turn to one way in which the term “Africa” can be examined, namely, as the name of a geographical location.

It is reasonable to accept the geographical meaning of “Africa”: Africa, from the geographical point of view, does not mean Asia, Latin America, Europe, North America or the Middle East. Yet the reasonableness of accepting the geographical meaning is questionable on two grounds:

• The fi rst point of contention that we can raise is that from the point of view of natural history. We learn that all the continents of our planet Earth were once a single, compact, undivided whole, called Pangea. According to geologists, our planet with its geographical divisions did not always exist as such. The geographical

PLS1502/1 3

divisions evolved over millennia. At a particular point in the course of the evolutionary process the separation into the various continents of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe (as well as numerous islands) occurred by natural means. Not nature as such, but human beings – though part of nature too – gave specifi c names to the continents, which leads us to our second point of contention.

• The naming of the continents is therefore the second ground on which we may question the reasonableness of accepting the geographical meaning of “Africa”. This ground forms the bridge between understanding the term “Africa” as a purely geographical term and the historical meaning of “Africa”. In the course of political and social history human beings gave names to various African regions, which were changed from time to time. For example Northern Rhodesia was renamed Zambia, Tanganyika was renamed Tanzania, Southern Rhodesia was renamed Zimbabwe, South West Africa was renamed Namibia, but South Africa was not renamed Azania. The point is to introduce you to the idea that the study of the natural sciences does to some extent help explain why certain changes occurred at a particular time, why they will recur or why they will not happen again. The study of the human sciences – and, for our purposes, political and social history in particular – explains why, for example, the Kingdom of Basutoland was renamed Lesotho. Accordingly, the geographical meaning of “Africa” must be complemented by the historical meaning.

From the above it is reasonable to suspect that perhaps the name “Africa” arose at a particular time under specifi c historical circumstances. Regarding the historical meaning, we read the following:

In antiquity, the Greeks are said to have called the continent Libya and the Romans Africa, perhaps from the Latin aprica (sunny), or the Greek aphrike (without cold). The name Africa, however, was chiefl y applied to the northern coast of the continent, which was in effect regarded as a southern extension of Europe. The Romans, who for a time ruled the North African coast, are also said to have called the area south of their settlements, Afriga, or the Land of the Afrigs – the name of a Berber community south of Carthage. Another explanation occasionally offered is that the name applied to a productive region of what is now Tunisia meant Ears of Corn. The word Ifriqiyah is apparently the Arabic transliteration of Africa (“Encyclopaedia Britannica” 1974:117).

From this citation we note three things:

First, the Mediterranean provided a platform for cultural interaction between and among the Romans and the Greeks and the peoples of what was later to be called North Africa. It was also the platform for cultural interaction between and among the Romans and the Greeks, the peoples of “North Africa” and the Arabs. It is in the course of this cultural interaction in the Mediterranean cultural space that the name Africa emerged; fi rst with regard to the northern part of the continent only and later applied to the whole continent as it is today.

Secondly, in terms of the interaction and relations between the Greeks and the Romans on the one hand and the peoples of “North Africa” on the other, it is clear that the name “Africa” is a description of the Greek and Roman experiences of the continent’s climate. In view of the Roman “rule” of “North Africa” and the “set-tlements” the Romans had established there, it is reasonable to infer that the name Africa was not given by the continent’s indigenous, conquered inhabitants. On the contrary, it is a description based initially on the Roman conquest – “Carthago delenda est”, Carthage has been destroyed – of “North Africa”. (Does the name of the Roman general Scipio Africanus come to mind?) Over time, this description

4

became part of the everyday vocabulary of the peoples of southern Europe. It later spread to other parts of Western Europe, including England. The conquest of Africa through the unjust wars of colonisation then reaffi rmed this description, making it possible to speak of Africa as if it comprised only one ethnic group of people hav-ing a single common culture. The name Africa therefore ought to be questioned. According to Ali Mazrui (1986:25, 29, 38):

[T]he name Africa may have originally been either Semitic or Greco-Roman ... [T]he application of the name in more recent centuries has been due almost entirely to Western Europe. ... [W]e should question Europe’s decisions about boundaries of Africa and the identity of Africans.

Names and naming comprise one of the on-going problems about the identity of Africa. Most African countries changed their names at independence – for example Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. This name changing illustrates the on-going problem. The situation that gave rise to the name changing is comparable to that of a child who lived for a long time with foster parents who deliberately and system-atically concealed the fact that they were not the child’s biological parents. Surely, when the child ultimately discovers its biological parents, its relationship with the foster parents will change for better or worse? The same is true of its relationship with its newly discovered biological parents. The term “Africa”, applied to the entire continent, could have had a different signifi cance if the “Afrigs” were responsible for its reference to the entire continent. Against this background, the discovery that “Africa” is not only a description by an outsider but also an imposition by the same outsider generates many problems. One of the problems is that it is rather funny that the study of “African” philosophy simply means the study of “sunny” or solar philosophy! No doubt anyone interested in the impact of a climate “without cold” on the philosophy of a people living in such a climate may propound a theory about that climate. But this is not the same thing as the philosophy expressed by the peo-ples of this climatic region in their own right. In other words, it is one thing to talk about the philosophy of the Bantu, the San or the Akan peoples and quite another to theorise on solar philosophy. This is not an idle point because some of the critics of “African” philosophy argue that it is impossible to speak of such a philosophy, precisely because the peoples of Africa belong to complex and diverse ethnic groups. Of course, the critics take the meaning of the term “Africa” for granted, whereas we in this instance do not. Similarly, they accept the term “European” philosophy or the “European” Union at face value.

Thirdly, the term “Africa” speaks more of the West European historical experience with the peoples of the continent and much less of these peoples’ experience of their own self-understanding. In other words, the history of “Africa” is mainly the history of the West European experience of “Africa” and only incidentally the story of the peoples of the continent about themselves. Let us take one example to illustrate this. In the sixth volume of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1974:461) under the rubric “History of Egypt” we read:

The Eg yptians were a practical people, and they reveal through the products of their arts and crafts their particular genius. In classical times these early Eg yptians were also credited by the Greeks with great knowledge and wisdom; but the evidence provided by Eg yptian writings does not support this Greek opinion. It is probable that Greek travellers in Eg ypt, impressed by the grandeur and antiquity of the monuments of the land and misled by the accounts of past ages given to them by their priestly guides, grossly misinterpreted the evidence

PLS1502/1 5

and jumped to unwarranted conclusions. Unlike the Greeks, the Eg yptians were not philo-sophically inclined, intellectually inquisitive, or prone to theorising ...

First, the author here contradicts “Greek opinion” on facts which he or she does not care to bring to light – except to refer to them vaguely as “Egyptian writings”. The second problem is that not only “Greek travellers” visited and sojourned in Egypt, but also people from other parts of the world. Nor was it only the “priestly guides” who passed on information about Egyptian “knowledge and wisdom”. In fact, some of the “priestly guides” actually received their priestly training from the Egyptians. For this they had to stay in Egypt for much longer than a fl eeting visit. Aristotle, by his own admission (Metaphysics 1.1981b:14–24), acknowledged the Egyptian origin of the sciences of mathematics and astronomy. Apparently, it is testimony like this which the author of the entry cited either ignores deliberately or denies. He or she is by no means alone in this approach. Even Copleston, a towering fi gure in the history of Western philosophy, has shown similar disregard and implicit denial of fi rst-hand testimony from the ancient Greeks. Commenting on this, Osuagwu (1999:87, 94, 95, 96) argues thus:

Copleston totally rejects a historical and scientifi c African philosophy of ancient Black Eg ypt and its subsequent infl uence on and relation with early Greek philosophy ... F.C. Copleston (1907–1985), an American Catholic clerg yman, is a typical 20th century Eu-ropean representative of the view which denies and severs all historical philosophical links of ancient Eg ypt with Greece and Rome ... Furthermore, Copleston would not accept even the personally documented testimonies of the ancient Greek philosophers ... If Copleston ignores the personal and fi rst hand literary testimonies of ancient Greek philosophers, he would certainly be less ready to accept the secondary reports of later past authors like Herodotus ...

It goes without saying that the author of the encyclopaedia entry just cited falls within the same category as Copleston. Both the entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica and Copleston’s rejection, denial, disregard or even misinterpretation of ancient black Egypt arrogate philosophy and reason exclusively to the West. The will to appro-priate impels the author of the Encyclopaedia Britannica entry to assign “wisdom” but not thought or reason to ancient black Egypt. The same will to appropriate reason permits the author to give himself or herself the licence to ascribe, later in the same paragraph of the above citation, “magic” to the body of knowledge of ancient black Egypt. This will to appropriate reason as the exclusive quality and right of the West-ern European is one of the robust pillars of Western philosophy.

Aristotle’s defi nition of the human being as “a rational animal” seems to have inspired the philosophy of colonisation and has survived decolonisation. In effect, the no-tion that humanity is exclusively Western is alive in our time, although in somewhat more subtle manifestations. Please study Ramose’s essay “The struggle for reason in Africa” (2002) against this background.

Once you have worked through the second learning unit entitled “Discourses on Africa”, you will understand why and how some people still continue to raise one or both of the following questions:

• Is there an African philosophy?

• Can there be an African philosophy?

In his celebrated essay on these questions in relation to Latin America, and indeed colonised peoples the world over, Bondy has argued that these are by no means empirical questions. On the contrary, they are based on doubt that the African, the

6

Amerindian and the Australasian are also genuine and authentic members of the “rational animal” category. Bondy (1986:240–243) argues:

Where is the cause, the determining complex of this condition of Hispanic America as an entity and also of each of its constituent nations? If we are aware that this condition is not peculiar to Hispanic American countries, but is largely similar to that of other communities and regional groups of nations, belonging to what today is called the Third World, then it is clear that, to explain it, we must utilize the concept of underdevelopment, with the correla-tive concept of domination. ... Philosophy in Hispanic America has a possibility of being authentic in the midst of the unauthenticity that surrounds and consumes it, and to convert itself into the lucid awareness of this condition and into the thought capable of unleashing the process to overcome it. It must be a mediation about our anthropological status and from our own negative status, with a view to its cancellation. Consequently, Hispanic American philosophy has before it – as a possibility of its own recuperation – a destructive task that, in the long run, will be destructive to its current form. It must be an awareness that cancels prejudice, myths, idols; an awareness that will awaken us to our subjection as peoples and our depression as men. In consequence, it must be an awareness that liberates us from the obstacles that impede our anthropological expansion, which is also the anthropological expansion of the world. It must be, in addition, a critical and analytical awareness of the potentialities and demands of our affi rmation as humanity.

You should read works such as the following in the light of this argument: The African origin of civilization (Diop 1974), The African origin of Greek philosophy (Onyewuenyi 1993), Philosophie Africaine de la periode Pharaonique 2780–330 avant notre êre (Obenga 1990), Great African thinkers (Van Sertima 1984), Black women in antiquity (Van Sertima 1986), Black Athena (Bernal 1991), and Black Athena: ten years after (Van Binsbergen 1997).

As mentioned above, you will fi nd full bibliographical details of these publications in the list of references at the end of this study guide. It is important to note that Onyewuenyi, Cheikh Anta Diop, Obenga and especially Osuagwu take the meaning of the term “science” for granted. Yet it is precisely “science” that gave rise to the problems in African history in general and the history of philosophy in particular. It is therefore necessary to examine the meaning of “science” as a prelude to espousing the African perspective on history in general and the history of philosophy in par-ticular. For example, “science” is not “neutral”, as it purports to be. Nor is it entirely “objective” and free of attachment to specifi c values. In the light of this, to take the concept of “science” for granted means admitting there is nothing problematic about the defi nition of “science” by others on behalf of Africa. Once this admission is made, by assuming the concept of “science” is unproblematic, it is clear that African philosophy is yearning for some space – to be integrated into the already existing body of “science”. Its philosophers demand to be allowed to do “science” just like those who defi ned it on behalf of Africans. But this is contrary to the demand to speak for oneself in one’s own right. Therefore we need to critically examine the meaning of “science” and determine its meaning according to the exigencies of the African experience as a critique of the concept of “science”. We may extract two crucial points from the preceding paragraph. One is that, for Bondy, the affi rmation of our “humanity” means that the question “Can there be a Latin American philoso-phy?”, or, for that matter, “Can there be an African philosophy?” is pre-eminently an ontological, not an empirical question. It is predicated on the premise that the defect in the ontology of the Amerindian, the African and the Australasian lies in the putative fact that, by their very nature, these peoples do not qualify for the status of “rational animal”. A counter to this is indeed the ethical/political imperative to

PLS1502/1 7

affi rm their humanity, which is to leave no doubt that any ontological defect stands in the way of these peoples to qualify as “rational animals”.

Another point is that the disregard, rejection or misrepresentation of the histories and cultures of the indigenous peoples of the continent known today as Africa points out a problem with the writing and presentation of “African” histories and cultures. This is the problem pertaining to historiography, the writing and presentation of history. The problem here is that the standard of “objectivity” was not allowed to prevail. Instead, it was subjected to the writers’ interests. The result was and, to a very large extent remains, the disfi gurement and distortion of the image and identity of the indigenous peoples of the continent known today as Africa. This aspect is discussed, for example, in the introduction as well as the fi rst chapter of the fi rst volume of UNESCO’s eight-volume General history of Africa (1978–1993). The point of the discussion is to underline the need to deal with the disfi gurement as well as the distortion of the African identity. It is, in other words, the recognition of the ethical-political duty to put the record straight by assuring that the indigenous peo-ples speak for themselves in their own right. On this basis it may not be necessary to abolish the term “Africa”. The retention of the term shall, however, not exclude specifi c foci such as the Rwandan Bantu Philosophy of Being, the Akan Conceptual Scheme, the Yoruba Concept of a Person, the Human Person and Immortality in Ibo Metaphysics, and the philosophy of Ubuntu.

1.3 Africanity of African philosophyThe Africanity of African philosophy refers to the specifi city or particularity of philosophy. Africanity is a set of characteristics that distinguish African philosophy from Western or India or Chinese philosophies.

According to Osuagwu (African historical reconstruction, vol 1:30) Africanity of African philosophy includes the “geo-ethno-technological” factors. These factors of Afri-canity refer to a set of members: to the person, place, time event or actions, culture, language, doctrine and method, involved in the philosophic enterprise (ibid ).

In other words, what makes philosophy African is a variety of factors. Osuagwu then identifi es four factors:

(a) The ethno-African: identifi es an African author or authors by origin or nature, by birth, ancestry, tribe, physiology, colour, and culture.

(b) The geo-temporal African: qualifi es the African space and time within which African philosophy is typically occurring. The African geo-temporality is by immediate physical placement within the African continent, or by remote spatial presence anywhere else where the African fi nds himself or itself.

(c) The lego-African: qualifi es and expatriate author or issue which becomes Af-rican by virtue of a civil, an ecclesiastical or academic law which empowers or mandates him or it.

(d) The techno-African: identifi es an expatriate African who becomes an African philosopher by interest or preoccupation, enterprise, research, literature, doctrine undertaken or produced. It clearly identifi es any work produced as African philosophy (ibid:30–31).

8

Another African author who has made us to think about what it means to be African is Professor Ali Mazrui. In the newspaper article in the Daily Monitor (Dec. 12, 2009), Mazrui distinguishes between two types of Africans:

We must distinguish between Africans of the blood and Africans of the soil. Africans of the blood are defi ned in racial and genealogical terms; they are identifi ed with the black race. Africans of the soil, on the other hand, are defi ned in geographical terms; they are identifi ed with the Africans continent in nationality and ancestral location.

Mazrui identifi ed two more categories of Africans:

However, most Ghanaians, Nigerians and Ugandans are both Africans of the blood, genea-logically belonging to the African race, and Africans of the soil, geographically located in, or belonging to, the African continent … F.W. de Klerk and other white South Africans are Africans of the soil by adoption. This also applies to East Africans of Indian or Pakistani ancestry. They are indeed Africans of the soil by adoption (ibid).

It would have been more helpful had Mazrui clarifi ed further on the last class of Africans. Nonetheless his four classes give some food for thought. Do you agree with him on the four classes? Substantiate your position.

According to Osuagwu, any philosopher or any philosophy infl uenced by one or more of the factors above, qualifi es to be regarded as African. Do you agree with him? Why do you agree? Alterna-tively, why do you disagree?

Do you agree with Mazrui’s classifi cation of “classes of Africans”? Why? Why not?

Summary table of classes of Africans:

Osuagwu Mazrui

Ethno-African Africans of the blood

Spatio-temporal African Africans of the soil

Lego-African Africans of both the blood and the soil

Techno-African Africans of the soil by adoption

1.4 Philosophicality of African philosophyLet us now look at the term “philosophy”. The term “philosophy” is derived from the Greek language, philosophia which means literally the love of wisdom. The fact that this particular term is derived from the Greek language does not necessarily mean philosophy originated in Greece. Chinese philosophy and ancient Egyptian philosophy, for example, are known to be much older than the philosophy that is specifi cally associated with Greece and that has since come to be known as Western philosophy. By this observation we wish to underline the point of the origin of the term philosophy, especially as a particular historical tradition.

First, it is important to recognise that to be genuine lovers of wisdom we must pay attention to and question every experience. Questioning experience involves the attitude of not taking knowledge and truth claims for granted. Instead, these are questioned so that they proffer arguments for support. For the philosopher, argu-mentation – in the form of the specialist study of logic – is as necessary as water is to fi sh. Argumentation is actually necessary for every branch of study. The lawyer,

PLS1502/1 9

for example, must engage in argumentation not just because it is interesting to ar-gue. On the contrary, the lawyer is interested in argumentation as a means to the particular end of resolving disputes as justly and equitably as possible. Similarly, the philosopher’s interest in and involvement with argumentation is intended to ascertain that the knowledge and truth claims that we make are justifi ed and reliable. This is vitally important because it is imprudent to base our lives on untested knowledge and truth claims. Also, it is certainly not wise to actually conduct our day-to-day lives on the basis of untested knowledge and truth claims.

Philosophy then, properly understood, is the love of wisdom – if you translate philosophy from the original Greek, it literally means “the love of wisdom”. This means the quest to attain reliable knowledge and to act out such knowledge in rel-evant situations of practical life, is of vital importance when doing philosophy. So the wisdom of philosophy resides in knowledge based on argumentation pertaining to the why, the what, and the how of experience. Understood in this way, philosophy is necessarily part of being a human being – as an individual and as part of a group. Of course, the problem arises as soon as the term “philosophy” assumes the restricted meaning of a scientifi c or professional discipline. The defi nition and meaning of philosophy in this context continues to be contentious among and between various philosophies, especially the African and the Western philosophies. This is precisely the context as well as the underlying theme running through this module.

Contrary to the view expressed above, Osuagwu (African historical reconstruction, vol 1:29) holds that the philosophicality of African philosophy makes African philosophy a strictly formal and scientifi c discipline. He argues as follows:

(a) African philosophy ought to be formally understood and undertaken.(b) It should be a systematic and critical enterprise of the human reason in the interpretative

search and discovery of the primordial and essential or substantial meaning of things as they are in themselves.

(c) It must be undertaken, fi rst and foremost, by professional individuals or groups for whom philosophy is a community agenda for a community purpose.

Osuagwu holds that “[philosophy] must be undertaken, fi rst and foremost, by professional individu-als or groups for whom philosophy is a community agenda for a community purpose”. Do you agree with Osuagwu? Why or why not?

1.5 SummaryStrictly speaking, what African philosophy is, depends on the trend or approach that one is following. We will elaborate on this in chapter 3 of this study guide. Be that as it may, it is worth attempting at least a minimalist defi nition of African philosophy.

According to Kwasi Wiredu, a Ghanaian philosopher, African philosophy must be distinguished from African traditional worldviews. When this has been done, then African philosophy is the philosophy that is being produced by contemporary African philosophers (Wiredu 1980:36). Because of this, it is still in the making. This implies that as a formal and academic discipline, African philosophy is recent. To be more precise, African philosophy is post-colonial. However, this does not mean that in the pre-colonial period there was no philosophising taking place in the African continent. Study unit 3 of this study guide will throw more light on this in the discussion of Trends of African philosophy.

10

Tsenay Serequeberhan, an Eritrean philosopher, gives a more concrete defi nition of African philosophy. He argues that the focal point of African philosophy must be “… Africa’s own lived historicality and broken heritage/tradition” (in African philosophy: the essential readings [1991:13]). He further argues that such a philosophy must be textually based:

In other words, the literature of African philosophy is a body of texts produced by Africans (and non-Africans) directed at philosophically engaging African problems and/or documenting the philosophies of African peoples (ibid).

Serequeberhan’s conception of African philosophy emphasises the following:

(a) African philosophy is philosophy if it is written. Thus, orality cannot be phi-losophy. This point raises eye-brows especially for those of us who are familiar with the Western philosopher, Socrates, who presented his philosophy orally.

(b) African philosophy should not be abstract. It should refl ect on verities of his-tory in an attempt to resolve and explain problems experienced.

(c) Authorship of African philosophy is broader. It is open to non-Africans. In consideration that we live in a globalised world, this point makes more sense. It also corroborates Osuagwu’s criteria for determining an African philoso-pher (see 1.4 above).

Serequeberhan’s defi nition of African philosophy is closer to Paulin Hountondji’s. Hountondji is one of the most prominent Francophone African philosophers, and one of the most prolifi c writers on African philosophy. He is also one of the earliest and one of the severest critics of ethno-philosophy. He describes African philosophy as “a set of texts, specifi cally the set of texts written by Africans and described as philosophical by the authors” (in Alienated literature). The difference between Houn-tondji and Serequeberhan revolves around the authorship of African philosophy. Hountondji limits the authorship of African philosophy to Africans alone while Serequeberhan keeps it open to non-Africans as well.

In conclusion we can say that African philosophy is a systematic search for truth and meaning arising from Africa’s experience of reality. We must bear in mind that African experience does not make philosophy any less rigorous or scientifi c. It simply particularises or localises philosophy. In this chapter we attempted to defi ne African philosophy, by looking at, fi rstly, the controversy regarding the term “Africa”. This then led us to think about the Africanity of African philosophy, which necessitated that we also look at the philosophicality of African philosophy. In the next chapter, called “Discourses on Africa”, we will look how Africans and non-Africans have discussed Africa, and the people that reside in Africa. In particular, we will gain a better understanding of ethnocentrism and Eurocentrism.

Hountondji’s defi nition of African philosophy may be problematised as follows:

• Who are Africans?

* Hountondji does not supply us with criteria for identifying who an African is.

• Why does he confi ne philosophy to written texts only?

* Does this mean Socrates (the early Greek philosopher) was not a philosopher, as he did not write anything?

How do you think Hountondji can answer these problems?

PLS1502/1 11

1.6 Primary reading – ImboYour prescribed reading for this study unit is an extract from a chapter by Samuel Imbo, with the title, How is African philosophy to be defi ned?

Please read this extract carefully.

SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONSSELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONSPlease go to the “Self-assessments” tab on the left of your myUnisa page and complete these self-assessment questions for study unit 1. These ques-tions will not be marked, but will be useful for your own revision.

(1) Does the idea of solar philosophy make sense?(2) Does it make sense to retain the term “Africa” even though it was initially an

imposition?(3) Critically assess Osuagwu’s defi nition of an African.(4) What do you think of Mazrui’s defi nition of an African? Where do you agree

and disagree with him?(5) Summarise in your own words, the meaning of the term “philosophy”?(6) What are the different branches of philosophy?(7) What is post-modernism? How does post-modernism criticise Western

philosophy?(8) Give a defi nition of African philosophy.(9) Summarise in your own words some of the “politics” of defi ning African

philosophy.(10) What is the meaning of the question: “Can there be an African philosophy”?

1.7 Further Reading (see Appendix 1 for list of Readings)

12

2STUDY UNIT 22Discourses on Africa

2.1 Introduction and learning outcomesIn this unit, the philosophical arguments on and about Africa and Africans are dis-cussed. These arguments can also be seen as constitutive of discourses on Africa. In fact, this unit can be seen as a defence of the existence and the reasonableness of African philosophical thinking. Furthermore, the myths and ideological justifi cation of the inhumanity of the Africans is rebutted. The chapter deals with the work of two eminent African philosophers, namely Emevwo A Biakolo and Mogobe B Ramose. These two scholars are critical of Eurocentrism in the evaluation of African thinking.


(a) Uncover assumptions about Africa and her people conceived by some Europeans.

(b) Critique ethnocentrism in general and Eurocentrism in particular.(c) Understand cross-cultural categories for cognition that are often used to dis-

tinguish the African way of being from the European way of being.(d) Understand and appreciate that rationality is a gift that cuts across cultures.

2.2 The term “discourse”To understand this section you need to understand the key term, “discourse”. Dic-tionary defi nitions alone will not suffi ce for a proper understanding of this term. You should, however, see dictionary defi nitions as important clues in helping you to acquire a satisfactory understanding of this term – and indeed any other term that you come across. A proper understanding of a concept involves at least two elements: meaning as content and meaning in context. Let us explain.

In the fi rst instance, we understand meaning as content. The Merriam-Webster Diction-ary gives several meanings of the term “discourse”. (You choose to search for the meaning of discourse because you know that it is the singular form of “discourses”.) These meanings are: (1) “the capacity of orderly thought or procedure; rationality: (2) verbal interchange of ideas; conversation: (3) formal and orderly and usually extended expression of thought on a subject.”1 The question that arises from the dictionary defi nition is this: Which of the three meanings is most appropriate to use when philosophically discussing the discourses that take place about Africa? It might be useful to use a subject dictionary to get a good idea of what the word “discourse” means in a philosophical context. According to the Dictionary of critical theory, discourse can be understood as “[a] specifi c form of language use shaped and determined by

1 This defi nition can be found in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary at <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discourse>

PLS1502/1 13

situational rules and context … In critical theory, it is Michel Foucault who has done the most to develop this concept. In his work, discourse is expanded to include the operation of power: Foucault asks who has the right to use a particular discourse, what benefi ts accrue to them for using it, how is its usage policed, and where does it derive its authority from?” (Bunchanan 2010).

We can thus see that discourse is not simply what is said about a certain topic, or the ideas that people have about a particular subject. Discourse carries power – those who control the discourse, control what people believe about those subjects.

Of the different meanings provided above, the last two are the most appropriate to use in a philosophical context. In this unit, therefore, we discuss the formal, orderly and extended debates that occur around Africa and try do understand the power relations that arise from this discourse. You are thus in a position to understand and expect that in reading this section you will discover and learn about philosophical arguments focused on Africa.

How do you understand the word “discourse”? Some of the synonyms of the word are “dialogue”, “conversation” and “debate”.

Now, think about what you have learnt in the fi rst unit of this study guide. Refl ect on the possible discourse that might arise from “conversations” about Africa.

2.3 Discourses on AfricaIn this unit, we focus our attention of post-colonial African philosophy. Post-colonial African philosophy is built on the premise that knowledge of and the truth about Africa is experienced by Africans, and therefore ought to be understood by Africans themselves. During colonialisation, the non-African colonisers often constructed distorted and unreal images of Africans. These unreal images contained false, one-dimensional ideologies of Africans and, problematically, some of these ideas are still pervasive after the end of colonialism.

In this unit, we will focus on both the content and the structure of the various essays so that the content illuminates the structure of the argument and the structure in turn explains the content. In other words, the content will be clarifi ed in the light of the structure and the structure will be explained on the basis of the content. It should be clear then that we do not intend to give you just a summary of the vari-ous essays. In pursuit of our approach we will pose questions designed to help you understand the issues involved. We now turn to our prescribed readings.

Post-colonial philosophy, then, emphasises the necessity of Africans exercising their right to speak for themselves and construct their own identities, as opposed to being defi ned by the often distorted or unreal images portrayed without their consent by non-Africans. In expressing knowledge and proclaiming the truth about Africa, Africans question similar claims and proclamations. African thinkers test the truthfulness of knowledge claims and imagined truths about Africa presented by non-Africans. In some cases they actually show such claims and truths to be false.

This means then that the two essays (of Biakolo and Ramose) discussed in this chapter must be understood as a dialogue between Africans and non-Africans. The dialogue takes one of the following forms. It may be a direct focus on the thinking of a particular philosopher on a specifi c subject. Alternatively, it may be a direct focus on a specifi c philosophical trend. So the dialogue is specifi cally between African and Western philosophies. This is not accidental. Although the Arab conquest of

14

Africa is a recognised fact, it is also true that the colonisation of Africa by the West replaced and perfected the Arab conquest. Though the colonisation of Africa by the West did not completely eliminate the Arab presence and infl uence on Africa, it certainly was and continues to be relatively dominant.

The ensuing dialogue between African and Western philosophies is not limited to Africa’s historical experience since colonisation. This dialogue extends to the pre-colonial period as well. This extension need not always be immediate and direct. The pre-colonial period can be understood in two ways. Firstly, it serves as the background against which statements of Africa were made. Secondly, it is also the resource that we may use for the verifi cation or falsifi cation of claims to knowledge and truth by non-Africans. In this sense, then, the pre-colonial and post-colonial historical experience of Africa is the context in which “discourses on Africa” unfolds. Philosophy forms an integral part of this discourse in the sense that participation in the knowledge and truth debate is distinctively philosophical.

One could question why it is important to think philosophically about the discourses in Africa. There are three main reasons. Firstly, it is important to review ideas. Sec-ondly, one has to critique these views. Finally, one has to reconstruct ideas. These three reasons will now be discussed in more depth.

Review

When one reviews an idea, it means that one examines it anew, or appraises at it from a different angle. Those authors that deal discourses in Africa, reconsiders the anthropological arguments about and judgments concerning Africa and her people. Furthermore, in this process, these thinkers analyse and examine the ideologies of colonialism in order to lay bare the fallacies and misconceptions that exist on Africa.

If we read Biakolo’s essay, “Categories of cross-cultural cognition and the African condition” (2002), then we can see how he examines the misjudgements made by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Lévy-Bruhl claim that Africans can be characterised as savage, pre-logical, perceptual, oral and religious beings. Lévy-Bruhl contrasts these ideas with the perception of the European people as civilised, logical, conceptual, textual and scientifi c people.

As philosophers, we have to do more than simply review ideas. In the second in-stance, we need to critique ideas.

Critique

Once we have reviewed ideas, we need to be critical of these ideas. For instance, the theorists that you are reading in this course did not simply examine ideas, but they evaluated and raised criticisms against these ideas. Take, for instance, Ramose’s essay “The struggle for reason in Africa” (2002). In this essay, he questions the com-monly held view by the colonisers that only rationality is the distinguishing factor of humans. The colonisers used this Aristotelian defi nition of “man” to discount African, Amerindians and Australasians as “human”, as these people were seen as devoid of reason.

In the fi rst instance, we can thus see that the African thinkers critique restrictive and narrow defi nitions of “man”. In the second instance, they critique Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism is the idea that Western or European understandings and interpreta-tions of the world are the most important or dominant ways of engaging with the world. It means that European and Americans ways of being and doing are the “yardsticks” by which all other people in the world are measured. The experience of

PLS1502/1 15

non-Europeans or non-Westerners becomes automatically discounted, overlooked and ignored as a result.

Finally, the African thinkers critique the division of the world that places at the centre the European and Western civilisation, and the rest of the world at the pe-riphery. This idea is represented in the diagram below. It shows that the African, Latin American and Asian people are placed around the centre.

Once we are critical of ideas and of concepts, we need to move further along yet. We need to reconstruct ideas.

Reconstruct

Once we have reviewed and critiqued the ideas about Africa and Africans, we can move forward to reconstruction. The thinkers that you are encountering in this course argue for a new worldview, in which a plurality of cultures is affi rmed and promoted and a quest for a new and true humanity is advanced.

Having thus established that the essays discussed under the rubric “Discourses on Africa’s focus on post-colonial African philosophy”, we can now consider them one after another. In the examination of these essays, we shall take the following method, as shown in the diagram below. This is a good way for you to engage with philosophical essays too.

16

Why do you think it is important to reassess ideas about Africa?

Can you imagine what South Africa would be like if people like Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela never questioned the apartheid regime?

2.4 Prescribed readingsThere are two readings prescribed for this unit of the study guide. The fi rst one is the essay by Emvwo Biakolo, a Nigerian philosopher, with the title “Categories of cross-cultural cognition and the African condition” (2002). The second one is by Mogobe Ramose, a South African philosopher, with the title “The struggle for reason in Africa” (2002). What follows then is analysis of both essays. These must be read together with each essay.

Before you read the prescribed essay in depth, have a brief look at the fi ve categories that Biakolo proposes.

• What could they possibly mean? • Do you think they are accurate? • Are there perhaps other categories that Biakolo can add?

2.4.1 “Categories of cross-cultural cognition and the African condition” – E BiakoloStatement of the question:

Biakolo (2002: 38) identifi es a problem. That is, he realises that a critical question was how the Western World thought about the “other”. The “other”, in this case, was the non-Caucasian races. Since the fi fteenth century, the Western World has come into contact with these non-Caucasian races, and tried to make sense of the people that seemed so foreign to them.

Biakolo’s investigation thus serves two purposes. Firstly, he wants to present and analyse the descriptions provided by the Western world in order to make sense of the non-Caucasian races. Secondly, Biakolo wants to determine whether the answers provided by the Western world are useful to illuminate and understand the African condition. “Cross-cultural cognition” is understood as the question about the mean-ing and function of knowledge, in this case, across Western and African cultures and the subsequent ideas about the “African condition”.

Thesis to be defended

Western cross-cultural paradigms provide no key to understanding and knowing the African past and present. Instead, they have served the colonisation of Africa well and continue to ensure the exploitation of Africa.

Approach and method

Biakolo’s approach is to study specifi c texts attributed to particular thinkers from the Western world. The author identifi es the categories of cognition that each thinker or group of thinkers are associated with. Five categories are identifi ed: savage vs civilised; pre-logical vs logical; perceptual vs conceptual; oral vs written; religious vs scientifi c. Then the study proceeds to show how and why the specifi c texts are interconnected, even if they deal with different categories of cognition or knowledge.

PLS1502/1 17

(a) Savage vs civilised

Biakolo submits that before Lévy-Bruhl, the division between savage and civilised was the dominant Western paradigm in understanding the “other”. The African was seen as “savage” and the Westerner as “civilised”. The savage African was seen as unable to have individual genius, whereas the civilised Westerner was capable of possessing individual genius. In 1871 Henry Morgan even went as far as designating different levels of savagery (Lower Savagery, Middle Savagery, Upper Savagery, Lower Barbarism, Upper Barbarism and Civilisation). The only society that attained the level of “civilisation” in this framework was the Euro-American society, attributed to their ability of writing and a phonetic alphabet (Biakolo 2002:38).

The debate that supported the above assertion was that between the monogenists and the polygenists. The story of creation according to the Christian Bible was the basis for the debate. The monogenists argued that “god” created only one race, and that only this race was truly human. The polygenists argued that if “god” created many races, then all the other races were not given the same soul.2 One implication is that other races were inferior to Westerners. Another is that, because of their inferiority based on their sub-humanity, it was rational and justifi ed to treat those races as subhuman beings – for example, by colonising and enslaving them. When he appeared on the scene, Lévy-Bruhl made a paradigm shift by introducing the categories of “pre-logical” and “logical” (Biakolo 2002:39).

(b) Pre-logical vs logical

Lévy-Bruhl focused on what he called the psychological foundations of primitive culture, and this marked a turning point in the understanding of the “other”. He was not freed completely from the ideology of inferior versus superior human be-ings because he also regarded the “other” as “undeveloped people”. He described these peoples’ material culture and way of life as manifestations of the “pre-logical mentality”: a mentality which does not have a logical character (Biakolo 2002:39). Instead, it is a mentality which simply associates one thing with another, even when associations are logically impossible. This mentality is thus the mentality of “par-ticipation” in being. It is incapable of standing back and looking logically at being from a distance. According to Lévy-Bruhl it is precisely the indifference to logic of the “underdeveloped peoples”, their submission to the “law of participation” which must now be used as the key to understanding these peoples. Also, for Lévy-Bruhl, the family, kinship relations and mode of production in societies of the “underde-veloped peoples” was just the material expressions of the group’s mentality rather than the individual. Lévy-Bruhl, as summarised by Biakolo (2002:40), thought that:

Primitive culture is participated in collectively, it is a shared reality. The idea of individual, and, by implication, dissident, grasp or assessment of reality, individual creativity, and so on, runs counter to the ethos of primitive culture.

In the light of the above, Biakolo (2002:40) observes that taking the cue from Lévy-Bruhl’s theory, the French created two types of African. One was elevated to civilisa-tion through assimilation into French culture and the other was abandoned at the level of the savage. Nonetheless the state had to deal with the “savage” as well. The British, on the other hand, relying on functionalist anthropology, allowed the Africans some degree of independence provided this was exercised according to the precepts

2 See the subheading “Spiritual racism” in section 1.2 of the essay “The struggle for reason in Africa” (2002).

18

and within the parameters determined by the British “master”. Biakolo described this as the situation of “cultural conquest”. He then suggests it succeeded to some extent because the natives’ religion was replaced with the conqueror’s religion and the entire educational system of the conquered was pushed aside and ignored. The result was that accepting the religion and the education of the conqueror became the prerequisite for entry into political and social life (Biakolo 2002:41).

(c) Perceptual vs conceptual

Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced the categories, “perceptual” and “conceptual” as a response to Lévy-Bruhl. His purpose was to show that the “primitive mind” was logical and that its conceptual schemes were structured in orderly fashion. For Lévi-Strauss the “primitive mind” was “magical” whereas that of the “civilised” Westerner was “scientifi c”. According to Biakolo,

… Lévi-Strauss argued, however, that primitive man [sic] had a genuine scientifi c spirit and logical-categorical abilities, as can be seen in his [sic] nominal and classifi catory systems and his myths. He admits that these modes of knowledge-acquisition are not necessarily the reserve of any one culture. Yet, fundamental differences exist between civilized and primitive cultures” (Biakolo 2002:41).

The difference is that mythical thought borrows from a diversity of sources whenever it expresses itself. The point is that the sources are limited and mythical thought has to rely only on them because it cannot conceive or contrive alternatives (Biakolo 2002:41). Lévi-Strauss calls the process the “bricolage”. Bricolage is a thought pat-tern which conserves knowledge by means of the reorganisation of what is already known. Thus it remains perceptual. By contrast, the conceptual method of knowledge acquisition and construction opens up new possibilities of knowledge by extension and renewal.

Biakolo (2002:41) then makes the following critical remark: Lévi-Strauss’s reluctance “to identify any culture with a mythical or scientifi c spirit poses a problem and not merely a moral one”. The structuralist thesis is that all life and culture present themselves in binary form. The thesis has a clear universalist thrust – “all”. Yet it is circumscribed and limited only to individuals within cultures. Why is the binarism not extended among cultures as well? If the extension is allowed, then it will be seen that all forms of the organisation and articulation of knowledge are binary. This in effect means that knowledge is tied to place and race (Biakolo 2002:41–42).

On this basis Lévi-Strauss may be described as an adherent of the binary view of racial and cultural forms of knowledge. Furthermore, Biakolo (2002:42) tests the claim that myth and science are dichotomous orders. The test is focused on the re-lationship between the dichotomous orders. Is the relationship to be characterised as a subordinate or a superordinate one? This question serves to show that “the selection of the terms of a paradigm are coloured ideologically” (Biakolo 2002:42).

(d) Oral vs written

Some scholars argue that Western civilisation owes its origin to writing. Without the invention of writing there could not have been Western civilisation. Writing, as a new method of communication, had some consequences. Before the invention of writing, humans relied on speech. Time was an important point of reference in the sense that speech was often linked to a particular event or events. However, this linkage with regard to events that had already happened relied exclusively on

PLS1502/1 19

memory. There was thus a living interconnection of time and memory. With the introduction of writing, a shift occurred. Memory was no longer very important because what had to be remembered was readily available in the form of writing. The ability to retrieve the memorable in turn demanded a focus on the space occupied by the written word. It thus displaced the focus on the event in relation to time. How knowledge was presented after the invention of writing differed from that of knowledge presentation through the spoken word (Biakolo 2002:42).

Due to the primary focus on the event, the oral word often took the form of a story, a descriptive narrative of the event. No doubt analysis and interpretation of the event occurred, but these were – in general – not as pronounced as the narration itself. Oral cultures then leant towards tradition and conservatism: traditional in the sense that they are conveyed from one generation to the other and conservative in the sense that what is conveyed by tradition remains almost unchanged over a long period of time. Thus oral cultures are participative. Following the invention of writing, presentation of written knowledge was dominated by description, defi ni-tion and analysis, according to Biakolo (2002:42). Discussions based on this model of knowledge presentation tend to be abstract. They are more the expression of an individual than a communal understanding of issues.

Biakolo (2002:43) then proceeds to question the above in the light of some scholars’ arguments. One of his questions reads as follows: The writing of history takes into account a number of factors in the reconstruction of the past. Yet in this case the argument is that only one item – writing – is the cause of Western civilisation. Is this claim not rather odd from the historiographical point of view? Another question is: It is commonly assumed that we owe the alphabet to the Greeks. However, studies by Gelb have demonstrated that this assumption is invalid. Biakolo (2002:43) argues also that if writing is the basis of civilisation then those who belong to the mind-set of the written civilisation are precluded from having access to oral consciousness. Do they not remain trapped in the culture of writing without the possibility of stepping out of it?

Furthermore, Biakolo (2002:44–45) notes that the distinction between orality and literacy (the written word) has been elaborated on in such a manner that only the literary has been elevated to the status of “science” and civilisation. Contrary to this position, Biakolo argues, that there is no scientifi c basis for the claim that writing is the essence of culture. Therefore the distinction between the written and the spoken word should not be exaggerated.

(e) Religious vs scientifi c

Here Biakolo (2002:45) focuses on the question: May we say “primitive thought” is rational at all? Three positions are distinguishable: (1) “primitive thought” is ir-rational, illogical and unscientifi c, (2) “primitive thought” is rational and logical but not scientifi c, or, alternatively, it is rational but illogical and unscientifi c, and (3) “primitive thought” is as rational as scientifi c thought within its own cultural context. Biakolo (2002:45) suggests that Robin Horton takes all three positions into account in his works. Even though Horton holds that African traditional thought and scientifi c thought are analogous, one crucial distinction remains, which is the closedness of African thought which “neither understands nor tolerates alternative thought” (Biakolo 2002:46). As such, African thought is still perceived to be lacking in logic and philosophy.

20

Biakolo then urges us to consider the criteria of science (2002:46). He is critical of the seemingly “objective” rules that scientists abide by. Even the Popperian solution to the problem of science falls short of satisfactory (Biakolo 2002:46). It seems that “the very foundations of scientifi c and logical rationality turn out to be no more than intuition or convention” (Biakolo 2002:46).

Biakolo concludes that in the fi nal analysis “science” is no more than a human conven-tion. In the language of postmodern philosophy, science may be described as faith, a grand belief in a particular model of knowledge construction and presentation.

Conclusion

Biakolo has considered the arguments for and against the fi ve categories. (Please note here Biakolo’s uneasy shift from “category” to “paradigm”, creating the impression that the two are synonymous. They are not synonyms and he appears to be aware of this, though his usage suggests the opposite.) He concludes that the “cross-cultural paradigms” are actually obscure efforts to come to grips with the African condi-tion. They provide no access to understanding either the past or the present of Africa. They have served great uses in the colonisation and exploitation of Africa, as Mudimbe suggests. But they provide no key to the knowledge of Africa. On the contrary, their perpetuation merely serves to repeat the outdated myth of Africa as the “white man’s burden”. It is important to note that Biakolo arrives at this conclu-sion on the basis of the following procedure: He presents Westerners’ arguments with regard to their understanding of the cognitive potentialities of the “other”, in this case the African. He has, presumably as an African, shown the strengths and weaknesses of these arguments. In doing so, the voice of the African was articulated by him only, despite his mention of Mudimbe. He refers to the “African condition” without actually describing and explaining what this condition means. Therefore it is doubtful whether his conclusion is entirely sustainable. But remember that Biakolo’s aim was to identify Western ways of knowing and interpreting the “other” – in this case the African.

After you have worked through Biakolo’s reading discuss the following:

• The distinction between science and religion is often very contentious. • What do you make of the distinction in general? • What kind of activity qualifi es as science? • Who decides on the criteria of scientifi city and determines on that basis what is “scientifi cally”

appropriate?

2.4.2 “The struggle for reason in Africa” – MB RamoseBefore reading the text, think about Aristotle’s defi nition of “man as a rational animal”. Then ponder the following:

• What could Aristotle possibly have meant with his defi nition? • What is reason, and why do Africans need to struggle for it?

Statement of the question

Why and how was the concept of reason used to justify colonisation and to pursue its aims to (1) conquer and proselytise the conquered, (2) conquer and wrongfully dispossess the conquered of their freehold interest in their territory (disseise), and assume sovereignty over them, (3) impose unilaterally, and on behalf of the con-

PLS1502/1 21

quered, the meaning of experience, knowledge and truth (in short, “kill knowledge” – commit “epistemicide”)?

Thesis to be defended

The restrictive interpretation of Aristotle’s defi nition of the human being as a rational animal may not be justifi ed on ontological, ethical, political and juridical grounds.

Approach and method

Aristotle defi ned the human being – “man” – as a rational animal. Colonisation used this defi nition in the restrictive sense only, so that reason was the exclusive quality and preserve of the Western “man”. Other “man”-like (human-like) animals deserved to be colonised because, though they looked human, they were not human beings proper – by virtue of the fact that they did not have the quality of reason. This ontological defect imposed on the coloniser implied the putative ethical duty to conquer, proselytise, disseise and commit “epistemicide” of the colonised. This imagined duty was actually translated into practice. In the process, a challenge arose from within. Bartolomeo Las Casas questioned the wisdom and justice of colonisa-tion on the basis that proselytisation was intended for human beings only. Since the colonised did not fall within the defi nition of “human beings”, it was meaningless, unwise and unjust to colonise them and pursue the aims of colonisation. A debate on this point ensued between Las Casas and Sepulveda. The end of this debate resulted in the papacy departing specifi cally from the papal bulls of Romanus Pontifex, Dum Diversas and Inter Caetera Divinae, by issuing the bull Sublimis Deus. This papal bull declared expressly that “all men are rational animals”. In effect it removed the contradiction between colonisation and proselytisation. At the same time it justifi ed colonisation and reaffi rmed its original aims. But the wide interpretation of Aristo-tle’s “man is a rational animal” did not eradicate the conviction that the African, the Amerindian and the Australasian are not rational animals. Consequently, the theory and practice of racism continued to get philosophical backing, exemplifi ed in the philosophies of La Peyrere ,́ Kant, Locke, Hume and Hegel. In our time the tradi-tion is manifest in the “Bell Curve Wars” in the United States, for example, as well as in post-April 1994 South Africa. It is important to emphasise that the Spanish are the only colonisers from the West known to have allowed an ethical debate on the morality of colonisation. This by itself did not halt Spanish colonisation. However it is testimony to Spain’s moral sensitivity about colonisation.

Conclusion

The author concludes that despite apparent gains made, for example in the domain of international politics through the appointment of Kofi Annan as the fi rst sub-Saharan African Secretary General of the United Nations Organisation, the struggle for reason in Africa is far from over. The conviction lives on among a great majority of the posterity of the coloniser that the statement “man is a rational animal” was indeed not spoken of the African, the Amerindian and the Australasian. Instead of trying to persuade the posterity of the coloniser to recognise and understand the folly of their conviction, the author urges the formerly colonised to construct knowledge and defi ne truth on the basis of their experience as human beings second to none in their humanity.

22


(1) Give a critical exposition of any one of the “cross-cultural” categories of cogni-tion discussed by Biakolo.

(2) Give your own understanding of the “African condition” and relate it to only one of the “cross-cultural” categories of cognition.

(3) What is a “discourse on Africa” and what is its purpose in this module?(4) The boundary between reason and unreason, rational and irrational, was as

decisive for colonisation as the boundary between “civilisation” and “barbarism”. Is it the case that bounded reasoning – reasoning on the basis of drawing boundaries – always leads to unfair discrimination and injustice?

(5) Do you agree that reason is the distinctive quality of a human being?(6) Is dialogue necessary for philosophy?

2.5 Further Reading (see list in Appendix 1)

PLS1502/1 23

3STUDY UNIT 33Trends in African philosophy

3.1 Introduction and outcomesThe aim of this unit is to introduce you to different approaches and classifi cations of African philosophy. These approaches are indicative of the fact that African phi-losophy is a vast fi eld of study. The different frameworks and approaches are however based on methods used in each approach. It also needs to be mentioned that each of these approaches and frameworks has been developed and arrived at through rigorous argumentation. Further, the matter is not settled as to how many trends there are and what those trends are. There is an on-going dialogue on the matter.

We shall begin this chapter by defi ning what a trend is. Then, we shall outline the most general classifi cation of African philosophy, followed by Wiredu’s and Nkombe’s and Smet’s classifi cations. We will then end the chapter by a detailed presentation of Oruka’s classifi cation – a classifi cation which is regarded among African philosophers as the classic delineation of African philosophy.


(a) Outline various approaches classifi cations of African philosophy.(b) Compare and contrast all of the approaches to African philosophy.(c) Assess the strengths and weaknesses of each of the approaches discussed.(d) Understand and appreciate the diversity of methods in African philosophy.

3.2 What is a trend?Often when we speak of a “trend” we may mean “fashion”, for example the New Look of the 1940s, or the miniskirt of the 1960s. “Trend” with this connotation can, however, seldom be linked to rational argument. It relies mostly on the tastes and aesthetic inclinations of designers and the appeal of designs to those who have to wear those clothes. This is not the case with philosophy.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Why is it necessary to think of typologies of approaches? • Why is it necessary to classify approaches if it is such an open-ended endeavour?

24

Philosophers differ in the way in which they develop their philosophies:

(1) They differ about what constitutes a philosophical problem and about how these problems are to be formulated (eg “What is the mind?” vis-à-vis “How does the concept “mind” function?”).

(2) They also differ about their fi elds of interest and the relative importance of these. For example, some see metaphysics as “primary philosophy”, others reject metaphysics as “bewitchment by language” preferring to start from our knowledge of the world, and still others see our ethical interests as the driving force behind philosophical work.

(3) Philosophers further differ about the appropriate methods to be used to deal with these problems (eg conceptual analyses vis-à-vis existential or historical analyses), and they differ about the nature and status of suggested solutions to problems, and the authorities to be followed in doing philosophy.

We describe these differences as different approaches in philosophy. And the im-portant thing to realise is that different philosophers do not pick their approaches on the basis of psychological inclination, but they argue for their positions.

It is possible to group individual approaches together in terms of similarities and overlaps in spite of serious individual differences. In the course of your studies you will meet the vastly different approaches. Of course, different classifi ers have their own philosophical interests and use different criteria for their classifi cations, with the result that philosophers and philosophies and thus philosophical approaches are grouped in different ways. The criteria used for such classifi cations differ in many respects and this is one of the controversies in philosophy. For example, are geographical criteria philosophically relevant? Does it really make philosophical sense to talk of German, French or American philosophy? Some classifi cations, for example those of rationalism, empiricism and idealism are criticised because they give epistemology the central place in philosophising. And so we can go on. In the light of these considerations it stands to reason that some such classifi cations are accepted more widely or used more frequently in the philosophical fraternity than others. That is why it is also necessary to take note of criticism of such classifi cations.

Philosophy is a vast fi eld. There are philosophies in different parts of the world; when we look at the philosophical activity in a region, we fi nd that in different pe-riods people thought differently about themselves and the world. Even if we take a particular period, we fi nd different approaches. What is more, we may fi nd similar trends in different parts of the world. Classifi cation is one way for the human being to get a grip on reality (in this case the reality of ways of refl ecting about reality). In short classifi cation is a way of coping with a variety of different ways to give meaning to life and the world. So a particular label can help us to understand that we are dealing with a certain kind of approach. With the danger of losing sight of important nuances, labels are a useful form of shorthand to cope with insights which will otherwise be impossible to oversee and make something of. This is particularly important in teaching and learning philosophy. References to trends are, in general, easy for the outsider to understand – lists of defi nitions and references to individu-als are not necessary. We may compare such classifi cations to maps which not only chart territories but, in doing so, help travellers to fi nd their way. There are therefore different approaches to and classifi cations of philosophical activity in Africa.

PLS1502/1 25

3.3 The most general classifi cation of African philosophy: languageThe fi rst way of classifying philosophies in Africa, of which you have to take note, is one based on language. Languages will always be a challenge in Africa. One of the legacies of colonialism is the place of the colonial languages (English, French, Portuguese and German particularly) as a means of inter-group communication in the former colonies. In this module we limit ourselves to the English and French traditions. It speaks for itself that philosophers from the French-speaking countries will link with the French culture and philosophy and likewise in the case of African philosophers from English-speaking colonies. Thus, the most general classifi cation of African philosophy is Anglophone African philosophy and Francophone African philosophy.

Before reading further, ponder the following:

How important is language in the study of philosophy? Does it make a difference in which language one reads, or indeed, writes philosophy? You can relate this discussion back to our multilingual society.

Anglophone African philosophy

This philosophy is propounded by philosophers from previously English colonial lands in Africa. It emerged from a more turbulent intellectual climate than its Fran-cophone equivalent. It is infl uenced by the analytical style of philosophising, which, according to Wiredu (2004:99) provide for a more narrow conception of philosophy than its Continental counterpart.

Anglophone African philosophy emerged partly in reaction to Placide Tempels’ La Philosophie Bantoue, especially after the latter was translated into English in 1959. Early philosophers of this trend were critical of the ethnocentrism (and Eurocentrism in particular) of many Western philosophers which was expressed in what became known derogatively as the “primitive” mentality of Africans. Accordingly, African philosophers embarked on an “apologetic” philosophy, explaining alternative world-views of African people.

Generally one can identify a two-fold movement in Anglophone African philosophy. The fi rst movement is a reaction against colonialism. As a result African philosophical discourses in this movement were dominated by ideological and political postures which were intended to lead to the decolonisation of Africa. The following philoso-phers and politicians were at the centre stage of this struggle:

• Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana) • Julius Nyerere (Tanzania) • Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia) • Leopold Senghor (Senegal) • Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria) • Sekou Toure (Guinea), and many others.

The second movement is the struggle for the professionalisation of African philoso-phy. Through this movement departments and conferences of African philosophy were opened. Some of the leading fi gures in this movement were the following:

• John Mbiti (Kenya) • Odera Oruka (Kenya) • Kwasi Wiredu (Ghana) • Kwame Gyekye (Ghana)

26

• Dismas Masolo (Kenya) • Emmanuel Eze (Nigeria) • Mogobe Ramose (South Africa) • Barry Hallen (USA)

For further reading, see Barry Hallen’s “Contemporary Anglophone African phi-losophy: a survey” (2004:99–148) in Blackwell’s companion to African philosophy.

Francophone African philosophy

According to Irele there are two perspectives that dominate philosophical thought and discourse in contemporary French-speaking Africa: the question of identity and the dilemma of modernity.

On the question of identity: Since the era of colonialism Africans have struggled to understand themselves and their place in the world. Colonialism was seen as a violent confrontation between Europe and Africa which led to an emotional re-sponse concretised in negritude. In the post-colonial era the policy of assimilation, together with the characterisation of Africa and Africans in European literature (eg the novels of Loti, Hegel’s philosophical works, de Gobineau’s ethnological specu-lation and Levy-Bruhl’s ethnological work culminating in The primitive mind ), led to alienation – which became the dominant theme in Francophone African literature and which culminated in the problem of identity as a central philosophical theme. Negritude developed as an answer to this identity crisis. It is an attempt to postulate a black racial identity founded upon an original African essence. It played an impor-tant polemical role. Negritude is, however, not the only philosophical perspective of importance in French-speaking Africa. This is clear from the criticism against negritude. The framework is challenged – is negritude a valid concept? Is this an acceptable rendition of the African’s world-view? Is it still relevant? The foundation on which it is built is challenged.

On the question of the dilemma of Modernism: Irele alludes to “a continuing crisis of African consciousness”. Colonialism caused a crisis for Africans but the end of this system did not end the crisis. Philosophers could not ignore the crisis, which meant an extension of the terms of the debate so as to include the African’s experience of modernity. This brought refl ection in Francophone Africa closer to philosophical activity in Europe. On the one hand, in the direction of critical involve-ment, African philosophers critically evaluate the Western tradition of philosophy and its historical consequences as well as its transformation potential in the African context. On the other, European philosophers also refl ect on modernism, on the fundamental human issues raised by the impact of modern technological civilisation, which means that there is common ground between the two traditions which is exploited. We can conclude that Irele started by identifying two main philosophical streams, and ended by claiming that “the movement of ideas of the French-speaking African intelligentsia demonstrates the plurality of African discourse”.

Other features which are prominent in Francophone African philosophy: The fol-lowing are discussed by Irele:

(a) Ethno-philosophy:

Father Tempels – a Flemish-speaking Belgian – published a very controversial book, with the title Bantu philosophy. The book had a tremendous infl uence on the develop-ment of African philosophy. Irele also pays some attention to Alexis Kagame, an

PLS1502/1 27

African follower of Tempels. According to ethno-philosophy we have to look for African identity in the African’s view of reality. According to Irele, the historical school, as expounded by Cheikh Anta Diop, looks for it in ancient history.

(b) The critique of Africanist discourses:

Irele presents VY Mudimbe, a philosopher who is critical of all Africanist discourses because they do not face what he sees as the main problem in post-colonial Africa: that of coping with modernism. According to him they do not face the problem of the relationship between discourse (thinking) and modernity in Africa. In short, because Africans are not involved with scientifi c and technological development, they are not part of scientifi c (modernist) discourse and thinking; therefore modernity is problematic for them. Modernity is a problem because epistemological (knowledge) colonialism has not ended yet.

3.4 Wiredu’s classifi cation

Kwasi Wiredu distinguishes between traditional and contemporary African philosophy.

Traditional African philosophy

Traditional African philosophy has a communal as well as an individualised com-ponent. Access to it can be gained through proverbs, maxims, tales, myths, lyrics, poetry, art, and the like. Examples of philosophers in this area are Nkiru Nzegwu, Ajume H Wingo, and others.

Contemporary African philosophy

Contemporary African philosophy is still evolving. It is a professional and academic philosophy which is mediated through books, journals, classroom teaching, and conferences. It embraces Anglophone as well as Francophone African philosophy. Its philosophers include Wiredu, Gyekye, Hountondji, Ramose, Masolo, Serequeberhan, Tempels, Kagame, Oruka, Bewaji, Okere, and many others.

3.5 Nkombe and Smet’s classifi cation of African philosophy

Another taxonomy is that of Oleko Nkombe and Alfons J Smet (1978), who distin-guishes four trends:

Ideological trends, involving philosophers geared primarily to improving the po-litical and cultural situation of African peoples.

Traditional philosophy which is the recognition of works of philosophy in traditional Africa. This trend examines philosophical elements in their various manifestations and systematically elaborates on them as repositories of wisdom and esoteric knowledge.

The critical school – they react to theses and projects of the fi rst two trends and to Western conceptions of science and philosophy.

The synthetic current involves philosophers who use the hermeneutical method to solve problems.

28

3.6 H Odera Oruka’s four trends in African philosophyThe text of Oruka is titled “Four trends in postcolonial African philosophy.”

What follows below is a brief analysis of Oruka’s text. Please read this together with the text itself. Our analysis is preceeded by some guiding questions.

Ethnophilosophy

In a short paragraph, answer the following question: Oruka says that ethnophilosophers have to contrast African philosophy with European philosophy. Why? How do they see these differences, according to him?

Ethnophilosophy and philosophic sagacity

How do ethnophilosophy and philosophic sagacity differ?

Oruka worries that sagacity might fall back into ethnophilosophy, and thus are open to the same worries. Do you agree?

Nationalist-ideological philosophy

How does Oruka defi ne Nationalist-ideological philosophy? Why does he fi nd this a necessary category in his classifi cation?

Think about South Africa and our political context here. On what basis should a social theory for Africa in general, and South Africa in particular, be constructed, according to nationalist-ideological philosophers? Do you agree?

Professional philosophy

How, according to Oruka, do the professional African philosophers see the relationship between African and European philosophy?

One criticism against professional African philosophers is that they are not African philosophers. What do you think of this criticism? Are the two categories mutually exclusive?

When studying Oruka’s classifi cation, keep in mind that he comes from the English-speaking side and does not represent Francophone African philosophy in his clas-sifi cation. The classifi cation by this Nairobian philosopher Odera Oruka of different approaches in African philosophy into broader trends is well known, and gives rise to heated controversy. He uses a four-fold classifi cation: (1) ethnophilosophy (ideas of philosophers who try to reconstruct a traditional Bantu or indigenous world-view), (2) sage philosophy (ideas of African sages on selected philosophical issues), (3) nationalist-ideological philosophers (ideas of politicians on the social, cultural and economic reconstruction of African countries in a post-colonial era), and (4) professional philosophy (ideas of professionally trained students and teachers of philosophy in Africa). Schematically, it may be represented as follows:

PLS1502/1 29

As already mentioned, Oruka’s classifi cation enjoys support by most African phi-losophers. For that reason our prescribed text for this chapter will be taken from Oruka’ works.

Analysis of text

This article dates from 1978. Oruka revised it a few times, but we decided to use the original version. On the one hand, this version made quite an impact when Oruka fi rst read it as a paper at a conference and published it. It was widely discussed and praised or criticised, and it had a marked infl uence on the development of African philosophy because it provided a framework for the study and discussion of African philosophy. Its categories are still in use today. Thus it is a historical piece, but also an infl uential piece with which students of African philosophy should come into contact. It has its shortcomings. The different approaches are dealt with in an abstract way – Oruka does not give examples and thus does not classify specifi c philosophers. This leads to a further problem, that of who belongs where in his categories. For example “négritude” looks as if it belongs under ethnophilosophy, but Senghor can be seen as a professional philosopher. The category of professional philosophy as such may be questioned because it is a different kind of category from the others and too hospitable – different approaches are put there in spite of radical differences.

With this goes another point. Oruka clearly operates from a specifi c view of the na-ture of African philosophy. According to him there is no radical difference between European and African philosophy – philosophy remains philosophy irrespective of where it is practised. This is of course not a generally accepted view. This view explains the position of professional philosophy. Oruka is actually distinguishing between philosophy and what he sees as quasiphilosophy or non-philosophy in Africa. Some philosopher objects to Oruka’s implicit condemnation of ethnophilosophy as quasi-philosophy. They think that ethnophilosophers “can present to the discourse of African philosophy both interesting and useful material on which to draw for analyses of the traditional and cultural manifestations of African existence”. They indirectly suggest that the ethnophilosophy category should have had the more positive label of cultural philosophy.

Furthermore, at the time when this article originally appeared, sage philosophy was not much of a trend. Oruka’s important publications on the topic appeared later. In this respect the article was not descriptive, as it was supposed to be. But in spite of all these and other criticisms it remains a publication worthy of note. Seeing that the article is short and its content supposed to be descriptive and thus not that diffi cult, we shall not work through it section by section.

30

3.7 ConclusionIn conclusion, in this learning unit we examined different approaches and classifi ca-tions of African philosophy. We fi rstly examined the linguistic classifi cation, where after we moved on to Wiredu, Nkombe and Smet and Oruka’s classifi cations. We have now completed the fi rst part of this module, which dealt with defi ning the scope of and trends within African philosophy. We now move on the second part, which deals with issues and themes in African philosophy, namely philosophical anthropology and morality.

SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONSSELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS(1) What according to you are the most important trends in African philosophy?(2) How does Oruka defi ne each of the four trends and what are his reasons for

including each of them in his classifi cation?(3) Outline and evaluate Oruka’s views on the nature and scope of African

philosophy.

3.8 Further Reading (see Appendix 1)

PLS1502/1 31

4STUDY UNIT 44Philosophical anthropology

4.1 Introduction and learning outcomes

This learning unit is the fi rst in the second half of this module under the heading of “Issues and themes in African philosophy”.

“One of the most persistent problems in philosophy, almost as old as the enterprise itself, is the nature of self, its status and its place in nature” (Okolo 2004:247). The purpose of this learning unit is to delve in one of the metaphysical problems in philosophy – the problem of “self” but from an African philosophical perspective. In other words, this unit wishes to investigate what it means to be human in the African culture. Our prescribed reading for this chapter will be Kwame Gyekye’s essay, “Person and community in African thought”.


(a) Give a basic description of what it means to be a “person” in the African culture.(b) Strike a balance between individuality and communality in your defi nition of

a human person.(c) Critique Kwame Gyekye’s essay on “Person and community in African culture”.(d) Assess if Gyekye was able to save the individuality of a person in his attempt

to describe a conception of a person.

Before you start with this unit, ponder the following questions:

What is “the self”? Is it your personality? Or is it defi ned in the way that you interact with the people around you? Or is it defi ned only by your thoughts and feelings, inaccessible to those around you?

4.2 African cosmology

African anthropology can be best understood when located within African cosmology or ontology. Cosmology is the study of the universe in its totality, and by extension, humanity’s place in it. But since cosmology in some quarters studies the natural order of the universe, and accordingly excludes the supernatural order, it is more appropriate to speak of ontology as the proper location of African anthropology. Ontology may be defi ned as the study of the nature of being or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences. Philosophically, ontology is the branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being. It is the study of being manifesting itself as a multiplicity as well as a pluriformity of beings.

32

The African cosmos is divided into two inter-penetrating and inseparable, yet distin-guishable parts, namely, the world of spirits and the world of matter, whose beings are arranged in a hierarchical order. In this order, one may distinguish between the invisible and visible realms. According to Okolo, whose model slightly resembles that of Tempels in his thesis of forces, the beings of the hierarchy, in a descending order are the following: God; Ancestors; Spirits; humans; animals; plants and inani-mate beings. The Akan scheme shares a lot of similarities with the Igbo and Bantu schemes with the exception of charms and amulets in the spiritual realm, whose purpose is to help human beings to ward off misfortune that may come in their way.

But, these beings on the hierarchy are not just “substances” – standing on their own–as is the case in Aristotelian (theory of beings) metaphysics. In the African cosmology the beings of the hierarchy are dynamic and hence forever in motion. The beings are interconnected with one another so that there is an interaction of all by all. The African universe is therefore like a spider web with a network of rela-tions in which one part affects and is affected by another part. African ontology is therefore a unitary ontology in that it promotes a holistic view of reality whereby material and non-material phenomena are viewed as ontological equals, constantly interacting with one another. Further, a person is understood to be inseparably em-bedded in a network of relations, fi rst with other human beings, and secondly, with the other beings of the hierarchy. The idea of unitary ontology makes it impossible for Africans to compartmentalise reality. Reality is one and hence viewed in a holistic manner. The logic of “part” and “whole” is at work in this ontology. No “part” may be understood in isolation from the “whole” and vice versa.

A point to ponder … :

How do you think the African cosmolog y and ontolog y infl uence African philosophy?

4.3 Two poles of African anthropologyThe intra-personal pole: But in him/herself, who or what is the human person? In most philosophical anthropologies, a human person is conceived as a composite substance, made up of body and soul. In Western philosophical anthropologies, this view raised many philosophical problems as philosophers attempted to understand the very nature of these two entities and how the two co-exist. In African philosophy, the problem of the nature of both substances and their coexistence does not arise. What arises is the concern on how to maintain a healthy balance between one’s bodily (material) and spiritual needs. The concern stems from the belief that persons who are overly concerned about their bodily well-being at the expense of the spiritual dimension of their being, are in fact not in touch with their real selves, and are likely to care less about other persons. Gbadegesin corroborates this view as follows: “The idea is that a selfi sh person is concerned with the well-being of his/her body only (as opposed to the spirit). This suggests that if human beings were to be concerned with their spirits, they would not be selfi sh” (Gbadegesin:175). That a human person is body-soul implies that they are more than just a body or material entity. A human person is enlivened by a principle that has its origin from a being beyond this world. That, in itself shows the dignity and preciousness of the human person. Thus, failure to maintain a balance between one’s physical and spiritual needs has ethical implications.

The inter-personal pole: According to the African view of a person, a person is not only related to himself. A person is not an isolated, individuated being. A human being is in an ontological relationship with other human beings and also with the rest of the

PLS1502/1 33

hierarchy of beings and as such is only “real” in relationship with others (Tempels). According to Shutte, who draws from Tempels and Mbiti, a human only exists by being shared (Shutte:28). Without others or the community, the individual’s existence is almost incomplete (Mbiti). The human person is therefore never an independent and an isolated being. He or she is always “a being-with-others,” or “a person-in relation-to-others”. He or she is essentially social – a being-in-community (Tom Mboya & Julius Nyerere). According to Gbadegesin (p 175)

…persons are therefore not construed as atomic individuals. A person whose existence and personality are dependent on the community is expected in turn to contribute to the continued existence of the community … the crown of personal life is to be useful to one’s community. The meaning of one’s life is therefore measured by one’s commitment to social ideals and com-munal existence” (Gbadegesin:175).

That a person is a being-in-community is not collectivist thinking. For a human be-ing the community is a pre-condition for his or her full self-realisation (Dussel:186).

Thinking about these two poles of African anthropolog y, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is this different or similar to Western conceptions of the individual? • Do you agree with Gbadegesin on the meaning of an individual’s life?

4.4 Prescribed reading: Kwame GyekyeThe text of Kwame Gyekye is with the title “Person and community in African thought”.

What follows below is a brief analysis of Gyekye’s text. Please read this together with the text itself.

Discuss the following among yourselves:

Menkiti and Gyekye

What do you make of the tension between Menkiti and Gyekye at this point? Write a short para-graph explaining the tension in your own words.

My community

Think about your relationship with your community. How big is the infl uence of you on your com-munity, and of your community on you? Now, think of children in your community. Does your com-munity view them as full persons? If so, why? If not, what is the difference? By what principles does your community judge the moral status of children?

RSA’s Constitution and communitarianism

Take a second to refl ect on South Africa’s Constitution, and particularly the Bill of Rights. What role do rights play in South Africa, and how does that relate to the communitarianism espoused by many Africans?

Immanuel Kant and Gyekye

In the reading, it is stated that Gyekye seems to adopt Immanuel Kant’s ethical approach. Do a search in The “Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy” and summarise Kant’s ethical position. Think about how it relates back to Gyekye’s position .

34

Analysis of text

In view of the different approaches to the problem of personhood and community in African thought, Gyekye fi nds it necessary to clarify some commonalities and differences among the different approaches within communitarianism, thus open-ing the way for further debate in this area. Although Gyekye focuses his analysis on Menkiti’s ideas he pauses to consider the ideas of those he calls radical communitar-ians, such as Nkrumah, Senghor and Nyerere. Gyekye does not consider the com-munity as the alpha and omega in determining personhood. Without playing down the importance of the community, Gyekye brings into the debate the problem of rights. His primary concern is with the space that is given to the human person for the exercise of his or her individual rights within the terrain of communitarianism. He examines the question of rights in relation to duties.

So, let us fi rst look at Menkiti’s ideas. The picture Menkiti paints about the relation-ship between the community and the individual, forms the basis of Gyekye’s criti-cism of Menkiti. As far as Gyekye is concerned, “Menkiti maintains that the African view asserts the ontological primacy, and hence the ontological independence, of the community”. According to Menkiti, the African view supports the following notions: (1) “it is the community that defi nes the person as person”; (2) “personhood is acquired”; (3) “personhood is something which has to be achieved, and is not given simply because one is born of human seed”; (4) “personhood is something at which individuals could fail”.

Gyekye critiques Menkiti’s way of examining personhood in African thought – in which the primary focus is on the community as opposed to the individual – as un-necessarily overemphasised. In Gyekye’s opinion, emphasis is done at the expense of many other equally important human features.

One of Gyekye’s main concerns is the risk of failing to see the bigger picture if everything is narrowed down to the community. According to Gyekye, Menkiti’s approach makes the community an all-powerful structure in such a way that anybody who functions outside it may run the risk of being punished by failure to achieve personhood. Gyekye’s concerns become clear when he writes:

A person is by nature a social (communal) being, yes; but he/she is by nature other things as well (i.e. a person possesses other essential attributes). Failure to recognise this may result in pushing the signifi cance and implications of a person’s communal nature beyond their limits, an act that would in turn result in investing the community with an all-engulfi ng moral authority to determine all things about the life of the individual person. One might thus easily succumb to the temptation of exaggerating the normative status and power of the cultural community in relation to those of the person, and thus obfuscating our understanding the real nature of the person.

Menkiti attempts to show the acquisition of personhood in African thought by referring to the use of the neutral pronoun “it” to refer to children and new-borns, but not to adults.

Here Gyekye criticises him on the point that he has not investigated how the neutral pronoun “it” is used in a number of African languages. According to Gyekye, it is Menkiti’s hasty attempt to show that children and new-borns are not persons yet (the community has not yet conferred personhood on them) that makes him use a non-African language (English) as the basis of his argument. He further points out that if Menkiti had examined how the neutral pronoun “it” functions in some

PLS1502/1 35

African languages, he would not have arrived at the above conclusion. In Menkiti’s attempt to consolidate his argument about acquisition of personhood, he argues that “the relative absence of ritualized grief over the death of a child in African socie-ties” further proves that the community does not confer personhood on a child. Menkiti points to the elaborate burial ceremony and ritualised grief following the death of an older person in African societies as a counterexample. The reason for the reaction being so different in the two cases is that the community has already conferred personhood status on the older person.

However Gyekye rejects Menkiti’s point of view, stating different reasons for elabo-rate burial practices when older people die. Gyekye refers to the Akan people, who believe excessive demonstrations of grief over the death of a child may result in (1) the mother becoming infertile or (2) the dead child being driven away, thus inhibiting reincarnation and rebirth. Gyekye states his rejection of Menkiti’s approach as follows:

... no distinctions as to personhood can be made on the basis of the nature and extent of ritualized grief over the death of a child or of an older person. A human person is a person whatever his/her age or social status. Personhood may reach its full realization in com-munity, it is not acquired or yet to be achieved as one goes along in society. What a person acquires are status, habits, and personality or character traits: he/she, qua person, becomes the subject of the acquisition, and being thus prior to the acquisition process, he/she cannot be defi ned by what he/she acquires. One is person because of what one is, not because of what one has acquired.

The above citation shows that Menkiti’s attempt to portray personhood in African thought as “processual” does not hold. Remember that for Menkiti personhood “is not given simply because one is born of human seed”. Now, by arguing that chil-dren and new-borns go through the “process” of becoming persons, Menkiti denies personhood to children and new-borns But as Gyekye argues, a human person is a person regardless of age. In short, Gyekye rejects the processual view of personhood. According to Gyekye, some morally important expressions in the Akan language – for example “He (or she) is not a person” – are intended to suggest that an individual has failed to show the expected moral virtues in his or her conduct.

As Gyekye argues, these expressions suggest “a conception of moral personhood; a person is defi ned in terms of moral qualities or capacities: a human person is a being who has a moral sense and is capable of making moral judgements”.

But Gyekye believes this conception of a person does not nullify the case of children or infants as persons. The fact that children or infants are not yet considered as moral agents does not rule out the fact that “they are morally capable in potentiality”. As children grow, they reach a stage in their lives when they become moral agents and are capable of making moral judgments. Taking moral capacities as a point of departure in explaining personhood does not necessarily imply that the community confers personhood, warns Gyekye. As he points out, the community plays a limited role in a person’s moral life because moral capacities are not conferred by the community.

One of the issues on which Gyekye does not agree with Menkiti is that personhood is something at which individuals could fail. For Gyekye it is not personhood, but social status, at which individuals could fail. One of the main goals of Gyekye’s es-say is to dispel the myth that in an African setting, human persons have no lives of their own. Despite being “a communitarian being by nature, the human person is, also by nature, other things as well”. For Gyekye, the human person has rational-ity which gives him/her the opportunity to make moral judgments. Therefore the

36

human person is capable of choice. Because individual persons are born within a communal structure does not necessarily mean they cannot question some of its practices. The capacity to assert themselves gives them the opportunity to question and even to reject some practices.

In clarifying this point further, Gyekye argues as follows: The development of hu-man, that is communal culture, results from the exercise by individual persons of this capacity for self-assertion; it is this capacity which makes possible the intelligibility of autonomous individual choice of goals and life plans.

Gyekye’s approach – a restricted or moderate communitarianism – gives a compre-hensive account of the self as a communal as well as an autonomous being. Gyekye regards himself as a moderate communitarian thinker, because for him personhood is not entirely “defi ned by membership of the community”. According to Gyekye, the moderate or restricted communitarianism recognises the self as “a communal being and as an autonomous, self-determining, self-assertive being with a capacity for evaluation and choice”.

The moderate view differs from Menkiti’s view, because the latter gives the com-munity “an all-engulfi ng moral authority that determines all things about the life of the individual person”. In his discussion on the doctrine of rights, Gyekye argues that there is a place for rights in moderate communitarianism. This idea comes into play because “rights belong primarily and irreducibly to individuals; a right is a right of some individual”. For Gyekye “the respect for human dignity, a natural or fun-damental attribute of the person which cannot, as such, be sat nought by the com-munal structure, generates regard for personal rights”. Gyekye explicitly points out that radical communitarianism does not allow for rights because it gives priority to the community over the individual person. But in the case of moderate com-munitarianism, recognition of the self as “an autonomous, self-determining entity capable of evaluation and choice and as a communal being” shows that it would be immoral not to allow rights. Gyekye is of the idea that the community’s cultural development and success rests on the realisation that it is important to allow for the exercise of individual rights.

These are some of the reasons that motivate Gyekye to consider moderate com-munitarianism as a viable option as compared with radical communitarianism. But despite its recognition for individual rights, the communitarian structure also focuses attention on other communal values for the good of society as a whole. As Gyekye points out, communitarianism will not separate “rights from the common values of the community ... conferring on them a pre-eminent status”. Therefore Gyekye argues that “in the communitarian political morality, priority will not be given to rights if doing so will stand in the way of attaining a more high ranked value or a more preferable goal of the community”. At this stage it becomes clear that rights will always have a place in the communitarian theory, although they will not be held as absolute.

As we have already noted, Gyekye states that communitarianism will not give pri-ority the individual rights. But he is emphatic that “duties that individual members have or ought to have toward others will be given priority”. The doctrine of duties becomes clear when Gyekye writes: Concerned, as it is, with the common good or the communal welfare, the welfare of each and every member of the community, com-munitarianism will, perhaps undoubtedly, consider duty as the moral tone, as the supreme principle of morality. By “duty” I mean task, service, conduct, or function that a person feels morally obligated to perform in respect of another person or other

PLS1502/1 37

persons. The duties, which some members of the community feel they owe others by reason of our common humanity and should demonstrate in practice, are such as the duty to help others in distress, the duty not to harm others, and so on. The success of communitarianism in advancing duties such as caring for one another will depend, to a greater extent, on not being obsessive about individual rights, argues Gyekye. An individualistic system like the Western system does practise the above duties, but with less success – because the system itself is, according to Gyekye, obsessed with individual rights. Responding to the question why duties are given priority over rights, Gyekye takes the position that this is required by “the demands of the relational character of the person in the wake of his [sic] natural sociality”. Gyekye explains further when he writes:

The sociality of the person immediately makes him/her naturally oriented to other persons with whom he/she must live in relation. Living in relation with others directly involves a person in social and moral roles, duties, obligations, and commitments which the individual person must fulfi l. The natural relationality of the person thus immediately plunges him/her into a moral universe, making morality an essentially social and trans-individual phenom-enon focused on the well-being of others. Our natural sociality then prescribes or mandates a morality that, clearly, should be weighted on duty, i.e. on that which one has to do for others. One of the priorities of the communitarian structure is to promote communal living.

As Gyekye maintains, the success of communal living depends on the realisation of each community member that he or she has the moral responsibility to actively care for the needs of others. This care has to show itself when members of the com-munity pursue their duties. Gyekye says that “the social and ethical values of social well-being, solidarity, interdependence, cooperation, compassion, and reciprocity ... primarily impose on the individual a duty to the community and its members”. He seems to adopt Kant’s ethical approach, who encourages the carrying out of duty for duty’s sake. Gyekye states that you should carry out your duty not because someone has a right against you, but because you consider the person worthy of moral consideration.

As we have already shown, communitarianism embraces rights – which alone should indicate that, by prioritising duties over rights, communitarianism does not imply rights are not important. Gyekye is emphatic that

… in the light of the overwhelming emphasis on duties within the communitarian moral framework, rights would not be given priority over the values of duty and so would not be considered inviolable or indefeasible: it might on this showing, be appropriate occasionally to override some individual rights for the sake of protecting the good of the community itself.

The emphasis on duty does not imply that one should focus on caring for the needs of others without considering one’s own needs. Communitarianism encourages striking a balance between your needs and the needs of others.

4.5 ConclusionIn this chapter, we examined philosophical anthropology in African thought. Spe-cifi cally, we looked at the relation between the self and the other, the individual and the community. By reading Gyekye’s article, we came to understand that it is by no means a clearly solvable metaphysical problem, and that different thinkers approach it differently. In the next chapter, we examine African morality, which

38

looks at the moral guidelines that constrain this relationship between the individual and the community.


(1) How does radical communitarianism differ from moderate communitarianism?(2) Does Gyekye succeed in his attempt to show us that there is a place for the

exercise of individual rights in moderate communitarianism?(3) Explain the signifi cance of duties over rights in Gyekye’s version

of communitarianism.(4) What is the role of the community in both radical and moderate communitarianism?


PLS1502/1 39

5STUDY UNIT 55Morality in African thought

5.1 Introduction and learning outcomesMorality, behaviour according to, or in terms of norms and codes on how one ought to behave in given circumstances, is an important (if not necessary) component of human existence. In any society, certain deeds, actions and forms of behaviour are acceptable and thus commended while others are unacceptable, about which people are warned and/or punished. Even though different societies have different norms and practices, the idea of good (acceptable) and bad behaviour is universal. It speaks for itself that such an important aspect of life will be the topic of many and different kinds of discussions in any group or community. “Why/Why not this or that?” is a general and important question, and reasons, good or bad, for moral prescriptions, judgments and expectations are given in all parts of the world. In this regard the relationship between morality, on the one hand, and religion, human nature, ration-ality, culture and individual make-up, on the other, is important. Accounts of this relationship between morality and religion differ. In this learning unit we introduce you to moral thinking particularly with reference to the African context. We attempt to give you some insight into the basic framework of morality, and moral discourse in Africa. Two key issues fi gure prominently in these discussions: African humanism and the idea of communitarian ethics. We say that in Africa we have a particular approach to morality, an approach in which the community as such and the indi-vidual’s embeddedness in the community is crucially important. At the end of your studies you should be able to explain how morality and moral evaluation function in these communities, in other words to account for moral thinking in Africa. To say that a particular approach characterises African moral discourse does not imply that African morality is a closed book for the outsider. Attempting to describe and account for moral thinking in Africa show that these issues are general in nature. Moral thinking concerns questions like:

• Exactly what is involved when we make a moral judgment? • How should we view moral education and punishment? • What is the role of religion, culture, traditions and history in morality and moral

discourse? • How do we differentiate between moral utterances on the one hand and

descriptions, facts and scientifi c theories on the other?

These are only a few of many questions. In short, an introduction to African moral thinking is to a large extent an introduction to moral thinking in general. Seen in this way, we can say that a further aim of this learning unit is to give you an idea of moral thinking in general. Your studies should sensitise you to differences among cultural groups with respect to morality and moral discourse, but also enable you to see them for what they are. These differences form a basis for serious misunderstand-ings and disagreements, but there is enough common ground to make discussion and mutual understanding possible. Further, your studies should give you an idea of how to handle this kind of discussion.

40


(a) describe what morality is(b) explain what ethics is(c) discuss how Bewaji approaches the foundations of African morality(d) differentiate at an elementary level, between African and Western moral thinking

Discuss the following ideas with your classmates:

• Think about your own life and your own behaviour. • Do you have a very clear idea of your ethical principles? If you do, what are these principles?

Why are they better principles to follow rather than other principles? • Or do you rather act according to “gut feeling”? If so, how do you know when you are doing

the “right” thing? • Can you think of other examples of actions that are constrained by ethical behaviour?

5.2 The distinction between morality and ethicsThe words morality and ethics are sometimes used interchangeably. So we have to ask the following question: Are the words morality and ethics synonyms? For the purpose of this discussion, it is important to make a basic distinction between the two words. Read the following pdf-attachment to understand the distinction between the two words more comprehensively.

• Make a table with two columns, one for African ethics and one for Western ethics. • Think of three similarities, and write them down. • Now, write down three differences.

A closer analysis of the two words, ethics and morality, show that they are closely related in terms of their original meaning. In one of his works, Moral philosophy in African context, Joseph A Ilori (1994:40) argues that “moral” comes from the Latin moralis and “ethics” from the Greek word ethos. In their original meaning, the two words meant “the custom or way of life”. Ilori explores this point further when he argues that there is a tendency in today’s world to use “morals” and “morality” to refer to the conduct itself, and “ethics” and “ethical” to refer to the study of moral conduct or the system or code that is followed. When Ilori searches for morality in the philosophic tradition, he concludes that the conception of morality in this sphere has been more comprehensive. His point becomes clearer when he says (Ilori 1994:5): “While the everyday idea of the moral is based on conformity to a specifi ed and limited code of conduct, the comprehensive defi nition extends the concept to include every area of human experience”.

According to the broad view, moral judgements are not limited to such particular concerns as sexual relations, gambling, drinking, and murder, but are relevant also to such matters as choice of friends, selection of occupation, and manner of pursuing it, participation in civic affairs, and decisions about recreation.

It appears that by considering every area of human experience in his attempt to clarify morality, Ilori points out that the human life is a moral life. Ilori (1994:5) goes further to point out the defi ning characteristics of the moral as follows. Firstly, the moral is in the realm of decision. There is no morality without a choice among alternatives. Thus morality is concomitant of freedom. Secondly, the moral concerns values. The

PLS1502/1 41

moral problem is to decide between alternative possibilities on the basis of their respective values. A moral choice is a decision for the better alternative, while an immoral choice is a decision for the inferior alternative. The choice between equally valuable possibilities is morally neutral. Ilori (1994:5) contends that “the defi nition of morality [referring] to [a] deliberate decision among alternative values locates the moral in the person rather than in the act”. The above point clarifi es the commonly held assumption that morality relates to particular acts. Hence sexual offences, steal-ing and murder are accounted as immoral deeds, while sobriety, honesty, faithfulness and gentleness are regarded as moral.

Our introductory remarks in this chapter bring to the fore the following points:

• Instead of promoting the autonomous individual, morality in African thought tends to focus on the communal nature of human society. An act is viewed as good provided it enhances both the good of society and the individual. Principles such as personhood, Ubuntu and humanising of economic action refl ect this approach. Human solidarity and harmony in social relationships are some of the important elements of morality that are promoted in African thought.

• Morality in African thought is organic in nature, in the sense that it grows within the community and permeates every sphere of communal life. Morality manifests itself in daily communal life and activities, in which members of the community carry out their different roles. What is good or evil is articulated by the community within the parameters of its own experience; hence African proverbs are signifi cant in articulating and preserving these experiences. The Akan saying onipa na ohia (it is a human being who has value) hinges on Akan (African) experience. In the above context it can be argued that morality in African thought is concrete. In traditional Africa, morality does not have an abstract source but grows from within, because communities themselves are the makers of morality.

• Some of the concepts that are presented and argued have universal signifi cance, despite their being originally African concepts. A good example is the following: if the concept of Ubuntu is applied anywhere in the world, it acquires a universal dimension. But having said that, we should understand that being universally applicable does not necessarily nullify Ubuntu’s particular dimension. As such, we can conclude that Ubuntu as concept displays both particular and universal features.

5.3 Prescribed readings: JAI Bewaji – “Ethics and morality in the Yoruba culture”

The text of John Ayetunde Bewaji is titled “Ethics and morality in the Yoruba culture”.

Once you are done working through the reading discuss the following topics:

Defi nitions of moral concepts

Write down a one sentence defi nition on each of the following moral concepts, as found in the Yoruba culture and discussed by Bewaji:

Ese, eewe, abuku, aimo and egbin.

42

Ethics and policies

What role do you think African conceptions of right and wrong behaviour infl uences key political role players and the decisions in policy that they make?

Can you think of policies in South Africa that have distinct African moral values as a paradigm?

Analysis of the text

What follows below is a brief analysis of Bewaji’s text. Please read this together with the text itself. The essay is easy and straight-forward.

Bewaji begins his essay by pointing out the signifi cance of a code of morality in all societies. He asserts that any code of moral norms is intended for “the adjustment of interests among individuals for attaining the general well-being of the community” (page 54). But he also accounts for what makes African and non-African moral systems different. Then he announces the purpose of his essay, namely, an analysis of the foundations of African morality.

Main points of the essay

Bewaji debunks the common fallacies about African morality. He mentions them as follows:

• Moral obligations in African morality are social rather than individual. • Morality in Africa has a religious foundation. This is based on the view that

Africans are religious in all things.

Then he makes two very important points in relation to African morality:

• The fi rst one is that the basis of morality in Africa is human welfare, and not to earn reward from some divine or metaphysical being. However, he hastens to point out that there is a relationship between religion and morality in Africa. They both play a social cohesion role and also bring order in society. Thus, even religion has humanistic interests.

• The second is that ethics permeates all spheres of life in African societies. In fact even the gods and ancestors are expected to be ethical in their conduct.

The last part of the essay discusses ethical concepts in the Yoruba philosophy and culture. However, this discussion is preceded by enlisting of virtues of a morally upright person. Bewaji is also emphatic in pointing out that such virtues are rewarded by society. For instance, a virtuous person is respected by all in society.

Among the many moral concepts in the Yoruba culture, only the following are discussed:

• Ese: infractions against the Supreme Being, deities, ancestors as well as other people (Bewaji 2004:58).

• Eewe: things that are prohibited by the Supreme Being, which could lead to sanctions (Bewaji 2004:58).

• Abuku: the “blemish” acquired when acting against moral expectations (Bewaji 2004:58).

• Aimo: the lack of knowledge (in the epistemic sense), also, ignorance as a liability (in the moral sense) (Bewaji 2004:58).

• Egbin: caution against moral decadence (Bewaji 2004:58).

PLS1502/1 43

Bewaji concludes the essay by highlighting important issues discussed in the body of the essay.

5.4 ConclusionFrom this learning unit, we can see that there are differences and similarities between African and Western conceptions of ethics. Ethics, as the study of morality, gives guidelines on how to decide between right and wrong actions. In African ethics there is a defi nite focus on the community and the individual’s place therein, as defi ned by his/her interaction with the broader community.


(1) What is the difference between ethics and morality?(2) What is the moral foundation of an African ethic according to Bewaji?(3) Is it possible to strike a balance between interests of individuals and of a com-

munity in African ethics?(4) What is the difference between Western and African ethics?


44

APPENDIX 1

1.8 Further Reading Bernal, M. 1987. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civiliza-

tion. Rutgers: University Press.Diop, CA. 1974. The African origin of civilization. 1st edition, vol 1. New

York: Hill.Obenga, T. 1990. Philosophie Africaine de la pe´riode Pharaonique 2780–

330 avant notre eˆre.Onyewuenyi, I.C. 1993. The African origin of Greek philosophy. Nsukka:

University of Nigeria Press.Osuagwu, I.M. 1999. African historical reconstruction. Imo State, Nigeria:

Amamihe Publications.Van Binsbergen, W.M.J. (ed). 1997. ‘‘Black Athena: ten years after,’’ in Dutch

Archeological and Historical Society. Hoofdorp: The Netherlands.Van Sertima, I (ed). 1986. Great African thinkers. New Brunswick: Transaction.

2.5 Further ReadingBiko, Steve B. 2002. ‘Black Consciousness and the quest for a true humanity’

in Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings, 2nd ed. by Coetzee, P.H. and Roux, A.P.J. (eds). Oxford U.P.: Cape Town.

Oruka, Odera H. 2002. ‘Ideology and culture’ in Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings, 2nd ed. by Coetzee, P.H. and Roux, A.P.J. (eds). Oxford U.P.: Cape Town.

Serequeberhan, T. 2002. ‘The critique of Eurocentrism and the practice of African philosophy’ in Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings, 2nd ed. by Coetzee, P.H. and Roux, A.P.J. (eds). Oxford U.P.: Cape Town.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi. 2002. ‘Moving the centre: towards a pluralism of cultures’ in Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings, 2nd ed. by Coetzee, P.H. and Roux, A.P.J. (eds). Oxford U.P.: Cape Town.

3.8 Further ReadingIrele, A, et al. 2010. The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Philosophy,

vol. 1 & 2. New York: Oxford University Press.Wiredu, K. 2004. Blackwell Companion to African Philosophy. Malden:

Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

PLS1502/1 45

4.6 Further Reading: BibliographyGbadegesin, S. 2002. The Yoruba concept of a person: Énìyàn in Philoso-

phy from Africa: a text with readings, 2nd ed. by Coetzee, P.H. and Roux, A.P.J. (eds). Oxford U.P.: Cape Town.

Okolo, C.B. 2002. Self as a problem in African Philosophy in Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings, 2nd ed. by Coetzee, P.H. and Roux, A.P.J. (eds). Oxford U.P.: Cape Town.

5.5 Further Reading: BibliographyIlori, J.A. 1994. Moral philosophy in African context. 2nd edition. Zaria:

Ahmadu Bello University Press.Coetzee, P.H. 2002. Particularity in morality and its relation to community

in Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings, 2nd ed. by Coetzee, P.H. and Roux, A.P.J. (eds). Oxford U.P.: Cape Town.

Wiredu, K. 2002. The moral foundations of an African culture in Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings, 2nd ed. by Coetzee, P.H. and Roux, A.P.J. (eds). Oxford U.P.: Cape Town.

Ramose, M.B. 2002. The ethics of ubuntu in Philosophy from Africa: a text with readings, 2nd ed. by Coetzee, P.H. and Roux, A.P.J. (eds). Oxford U.P.: Cape Town.

acknowledgement this has not always been possible. should ... · study unit 4: philosophical...

Documents